


This Luv Could Be Bad 4 Us

by MOXerillaStixx



Category: All Elite Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Blood and Injury, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Humor, M/M, Sad, Shooting Guns, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 40,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25970275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MOXerillaStixx/pseuds/MOXerillaStixx
Summary: Kenny Omega's the alpha leader of one of the most powerful gangs in Los Angeles, second only to his rival, who he's in the midst of taking down.And then he meets Ash Blackshadow, a bad ass omega who'll kick an alpha in the balls and won't take anyone's shit
Relationships: Alexa Bliss/Becky Lynch | Rebecca Knox, Darby Allin/Cody Rhodes, Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley/Roman Reigns, Kenny Omega/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

Maxwell was a dickhead.

That was really all Kenny could think as he and his gang drove up to the warehouse owned by said dickhead. He was a dickhead who deserved to rot in hell for all eternity. Not that Kenny was a saint either, being violent and doing horrible things was part of the job description after all, but Maxwell was a hundred times worse than Kenny could ever be. The Canadian would know, he used to be a part of Maxwell's gang. He still had nightmares about the jobs Maxwell had sent him on, only doing them because he had a metaphorical _(sometimes literal)_ gun to his head.

At least Kenny had managed to break free. Now here he was, the boss of his own gang, fighting for control of the city against no other than Maxwell. In Kenny’s mind, there wasn't any other option than to get rid of him. Maxwell was the reason the city was in near constant chaos, he had to be brought down.

That was the main reason why Kenny and his most skilled men and woman were heading towards a warehouse owned by Maxwell. They gotten word through a reliable informant that he had something that would give him more power than he already had and that didn't sit well with Kenny. He didn't really have any other choice than to make sure whatever it was was taken out of dickhead’s hands.

The vans pulled up just out of sight of the warehouse's doors and everyone climbed out.

"Okay!" Kenny started off. "We have no idea where this valuable is being kept, so Cody, you and I will search the warehouse while everyone else keeps these people distracted on the ground level. Got it?" Kenny could see everyone nod and he slipped his sans mask over his face and watched as his gang did the same with their respective masks, officially adopting their criminal personas.

Omega gave the go ahead and American Nightmare led everyone inside ahead of him and American Nightmare. They both waited until the gunshots started up before they snuck along the back wall towards the stairs leading to the second level. They had their guns ready once they reached the top of the stairs and they crept along the hallway, opening doors and searching rooms as they went.

They finally made it to the turn at the end of the hallway and Omega peeked around the corner, seeing that the door at the very end of the hallway was being guarded. He leaned against the wall and turned towards American Nightmare.

"Whatever we're looking for is probably in there." Omega whispered. "I'll shoot down the guy on the left, you take down the one on the right." American Nightmare nodded and the two of them walked around the corner, already aiming their guns. The two guards were shot dead before they could even reach for their own weapons.

Omega walked towards the door, kicking the bodies of the guards to the side, and tried opening the door, finding it locked. He bent down to search the guards for a key to the room but came up empty handed. Omega sighed as he straightened up. He didn't have anything he could pick the lock with so that only left one option.

He kicked the door, hearing the hinges creak under the force. He kicked again and the door finally gave way, falling to the ground with a heavy thud. Behind him, American Nightmare muttered under his breath.

"What the fuck…"

For a second, Omega thought he'd gotten the wrong room. This couldn't be it, there was nothing in here except a girl tied to a chair! Time was running out though, judging by the heavy footsteps coming closer and Omega made the choice to just take this girl. Even if he didn't get what he came here for, maybe this girl knew something about it. At the very least, it'll piss Maxwell off. So, Omega made his way into the room, wrinkling his nose as the overwhelming smell of scent blockers hit his nostrils. He walked over to the girl, took his switchblade out of his pocket and cut the binds tying the girl to the chair, keeping her wrists tied and her mouth gagged, and lifted the girl onto his shoulder.

"Let's go!"

American Nightmare lead the way, shooting down the group of men running towards them before they could get close. The two of them made their way out of the warehouse and ran to one of their vans. Omega practically tossed the girl he was carrying into the backseat and then he and American Nightmare got in just as Omega's men and woman started sprinting out of the warehouse. Darby Hangman AP, and Prince Devitt climbed in and their van sped off, the other not far behind.

"Did you get it?” Darby asked as he took off his mask and Omega did the same, shaking his curly hair out and tossing the mask to the floor of the van.

"No." Kenny said, sighing and glancing behind them at the girl he grabbed. "There was nothing in any of the rooms except for her." He pointed behind him and the others looked at the girl. "Figured she might know something so we grabbed her and ran." The girl made a muffled noise behind the duct tape over her mouth and Kenny sighed. He was already making plans and coming up with questions to ask the girl, methods to get her to spill what she knew if she wasn't willing to talk.

When the vans drove into the garage of their base and everyone climbed out of the vehicles, Kenny had Cody move the girl to their interrogation room and untie her, then told Nick and Matt to stay in the room with her to make sure she didn't do anything stupid. The girl screamed from behind the duct tape as Cody dragged her away.

Kenny took a deep breath before going through his normal routine after a raid like this. He walked around, making sure that each of them working for him was uninjured, or if they were injured they were getting the treatment they needed. After that, he helped Roman and Britt put the weapons away.

Once Kenny was satisfied that everyone was okay and all of their weapons and supplies are stored safely, he walked out of the garage and into the lobby of the base.

The gang's base was an apartment building that Kenny had bought out after the gang's first big heist. Most of the core members of the gang lived in the building and the floor above the lobby of the building was shared by everyone as a lounge area, living area, kitchen, et cetera. The interrogation room was in the basement, which had been soundproofed and modified for the more…

Stubborn captives.

Kenny walked across the lobby and to the basement door. He unlocked it and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Even through the soundproofing he heard yelling from inside the room and he sighed, already able to tell that this one would be a stubborn one.

He unlocked the second door at the bottom of the steps and walked into the room, finally able to hear the screaming match between the captive and Cody.

"You bit me you bitch!"

"Well you kidnapped me, so consider it payback you shithead."

"We didn't kidnap you, that dickbag Maxwell did, if anything, we're doing you a favor!"

"I don't see you letting me out of here! You're just as bad as he is!"

"ENOUGH!" Kenny yelled, silencing the both of them. "Cody, let me deal with her."

He nodded, jaw clenched, and backed away, leaving the room. Kenny turned to the captive and found her glaring at him.

"What the fuck do you want?" The captive said and Kenny had to admit, this girl had guts.

"I just wanna talk to you." He responded before motioning to one of the less threatening setups in the room, just a simple table with two chairs on either side of it. The captive hesitated before walking over to the table and sitting in one of the chairs. Kenny sat across from her and they sat in silence for a second before Kenny spoke up again.

"So..." He sighed. "What's your name?" The captive paused for a bit before answering.

"Ash."

"Okay Ash." He continued. "Why were you being held captive by Maxwell?" She stared at him for a second before laughing.

 _Laughing_.

"Oh my god." She laughed. "I thought all of you stupid alphas could recognize an omega when you saw one."

That was not what Kenny was expecting.

"You're an omega?" Kenny couldn't smell an omega, all he could smell was…

Scent blockers.

 _Oh.._.

The girl nodded.

"Yeah." She said, letting out a hollow chuckle. "My parents were in debt to that Maxwell or whatever you call that little shit and thought. _Hey! Our daughter's an omega, maybe Maxwell will see some worth in her!_ And then they traded me to him in exchange for Maxwell forgiving their debt." Ash grimaced. "And that started my life as the gang boss's whore-betrothed."

Kenny stared at her in shock, trying to process what Ash had just told him. It honestly disgusted Kenny that parents could do something like this to their kid, just sell her off to a gang boss, knowing full well what could happen to her.

And Maxwell…

Kenny knew that he was horrible but this made him literal scum.

Certain alphas viewed braver omegas as less than weak ones, but because of how rare they are, it also made them _valuable_ to them. They were viewed as items, as property. For alphas like that, alphas like Maxwell, being bonded to a brave omega meant power.

Meaning that this _valuable_ Kenny had gotten word about, was the omega sitting right in front of him.

"I'm sorry." He said. It was all he could say to that really. She scowled. "I don't need your pity."

Kenny just sighed. "It's a really shitty situation." He said.

"What else do you expect me to say?" Ash pursed her lips, not giving an answer.

"Listen, I'm going to offer you something, and if you don't want to accept it, that's fine. You can walk right out of here. But I want you to seriously consider it."

Ash leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed. "What is it?" She asked.

"I want to offer you a place to stay." Kenny said. She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. "Just think about it. If you stay here, I can provide protection for you. I'm not going to ask you for anything in return and you can stay here until Maxwell is no longer a threat to you. If you leave… Do you have somewhere you can go where you'll be safe?"

Ash shrugged her shoulders. "I-I have a friend I could stay with but Maxwell knows where she lives." She huffed. "I guess I don’t have a choice then do I..."

Kenny nodded and stood up from the table, turning to Nick and Matt, who were still standing by the door as guards.

"Matt, go find me a key to one of the empty apartments." Kenny ordered. Matt left the room and Kenny turned back to her. Now that he wasn’t focused on getting information, he noticed the dirty, torn clothing Ash was wearing, the bruising on her face, and the scrapes and dried blood on her arms.

Kenny furrowed his eyebrows and walked around the table to Ash, cupping her chin so he could take a closer look at the bruises. "What happened?" He asked. Ash was staring up at him and she blinked a couple times before answering.

"Uh..." She started. "I didn't exactly bite my tongue around Maxwell's men. And I guess they didn't have any orders not to smack me if I sassed them so…"

Kenny didn't think it was possible to hate Maxwell any more than he already did, but the more Ash told him, the more he was proven wrong.

"Well, I'll get my medic to take a look at your injuries." He said, backing up. "And I'll see what I can do about finding you some clean clothes."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Matt came back and walked over to the table, handing Kenny a key. "It's for one of the apartments on one of the top floors." He said.

Kenny nodded to him. "Thanks Matt, you and Nick can leave now, I'll show Ash around." They left the room and Kenny and Ash followed them. The alpha locked the doors behind them and when they reached the lobby, he led her to the lounge area where most of the gang was hanging out.

"What the fuck Kenny?!"

And then there was Cody. "Why is she up here?"

"Chill out Cody." Kenny said. "I'll explain in a bit. Darby, come check out her injuries please?" Darby stood up from his spot on the couch and motioned for Ash to follow him, leading her out of the room and towards the room they'd stocked with medical supplies. Once the door closed, Kenny turned to Cody, who's arms were crossed.

"Well Omega?" Kenny motioned for Cody to follow him and they moved to the bar on the other side of the room, out of earshot of the others, and Kenny quietly explained the situation. That Ash was an omega who Maxwell was going to come after and Kenny was offering her an apartment here while she needed it.

"Fuck." Cody cursed when Kenny had finished explaining. "Fuck, what the fuck man."

"I know." Kenny said. "That _valuable_ that he had? That was Ash, and he was planning on forcing a bond on her."

Cody swore again. "Shit. Listen, we can't keep doing nothing about Maxwell. We need to take him down before he figures out a way to get to her or he finds another omega like her to force himself onto."

Cody nodded. "I agree." He said. "You have any ideas yet?"

Kenny looked up and saw Darby and Ash walking out of the medical room.  
"Not yet." He said. "We'll figure it out." They headed back over to the others and Kenny walked over to Ash.

"I'll show you to your apartment." He said. "Britt, see if you can find Ash some new clothes alright?"

Britt nodded and Kenny and Ash headed towards the stairs that led up to the apartments. The apartment that Matt had gotten the key for was on the second to top floor. The only other person that lived on that floor was Cody and Kenny felt confident that Ash would be perfectly safe with Cody so close by. Not only that, but Kenny's apartment was the top floor and he would be able to hear if, god forbid, Maxwell found a way into the base.

He led the blonde girl right up to the door of the apartment and he unlocked it, swinging the door open and stepping aside to let her pass him.

"Holy shit." She said, eyes wide as she looked around the apartment. It was impressive, one of the largest in the building only second to Kenny's. She walked further into the apartment to look around and Kenny stepped inside and shut the door behind him, watching as Ash took it all in.

"This apartment is bigger than my parents' entire house."

Kenny let out a little laugh. "Well, this is what I did with the money I got from our first heist." He said. "Bought the whole building and remodeled all the apartments."

"Money well spent then." Ash said, turning back to Kenny. "Seriously though, thank you. For all of this."

"You don't need to thank me." He said. "Listen, if you're alright here, I'm gonna let you settle in. If you need anything, I'm in the apartment upstairs and my second in command, Cody, is in the apartment across from yours, just let us know." He handed her the key and turned and was about to leave the apartment.

"Wait." Kenny turned back to her. "I-I was gone for a couple weeks and my friend, she'll be worried about me. Can I let her know I'm alright?”

Kenny thought about it for a second before he nodded. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone.

"Do you know her phone number?"

She nodded and took the phone from Kenny's hand. She turned the screen on and dialed the number before pressing the phone to her ear. Kenny could faintly hear the other side of the conversation, sounded like an Australian accent.

_"_ _Hello? Who's this?_ _"_

"Rhea, it's me."

_"Ash?!_ _Where are you? Are you okay?_ _Ash-"_

"Rhea! I'm okay. I-" She glanced over at Kenny. "Someone helped me out, I'm somewhere safe."

 _"_ _Thank god. Listen, Maxwell's probably watching me to make sure I don't know where you are, but I want to make sure you're okay. Can you put the person who got you out of there on?_ _"_ Ash looked up at Kenny, pausing for a second, before speaking again.

"I don't know if-"

"It's okay." He said, holding his hand out for the phone. "I'll talk to her." The blonde nodded and handed over the phone and Kenny pressed the phone to his ear.

"You wanted to talk to me?"

_"_ _Yeah. Listen, I've known Ash since we was kids, she's basically a sister to me. Promise me you can keep her safe from that bastard._ _"_

"She's safe here." Kenny said. "He won't be able to get to her while she's here and if he tries he'll have hell to pay." There was a pause.

_"I'm_ _not even gonna ask, as long as she's safe then that's fine by me. Can you give the phone back to_ _Ash?"_

"Sure." Kenny gave the phone back to Ash and she and her friend talked a bit before they said goodbye and she ended the call.

"Thank you." She said as she handed the phone back to Kenny.

"You're welcome." He said, pocketing the phone. There was a knock on the door and he opened it to find Britt holding some folded up clothes.

"These probably won't fit the best, but it's the best I could find." He took the clothes from her.

"Thanks Britt, you can go relax now, I'll take it from here." Britt nodded and left as Kenny closed the door and gave Ash the clothes. "I'll have a couple of my members take you shopping for clothes tomorrow, until then these will have to do."

"You don't have to-"

"It's fine." Kenny interrupted her protesting. "You can choose what you get and if it makes you feel better you can pick the cheapest clothes you can find, but you can't stay here with just the clothes you're wearing and these clothes that probably won't fit properly. I'm taking care of you while you're here and you need clothes."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're not just doing this because I'm an omega are you? Because if you're doing this just to try to get in my pants then you can shove your offers up your ass."

Kenny laughed, shaking his head. "I'm not doing this just because you're an omega." He said. "I'm doing this because these past couple weeks have probably been hell for you, you have nowhere else to go, and the leader of the gang rivaling my own is after you. I may be a gang boss, but I'm not the literal devil." 

She nodded. "Okay." She said. "Okay, I'm sorry, I just-"

"I get it." Kenny said. "No need to apologize. I'm gonna let you be alone now, let you settle in a bit. Come to the lobby in the morning and we'll figure out where to go from there, alright?" Ash nodded and Kenny turned and left the apartment.

He walked back down to the second level and stood in the doorway between the lounge and the apartments. As he watched his friends goofing around with each other, he thought about the meeting he have to hold tomorrow. Some of the gang wouldn't be happy about it, normally they all had a couple weeks to relax between raids and heists, but this was important.

Maxwell needed to be killed and his gang and operations shut down. There was no way around it.


	2. 2

Most of the gang was up and in the lounge by the time Ash walked down the stairs. Her scent wafted in front of her, no longer diluted by the mask of the scent blockers and god, did it make Kenny's mouth water. He saw the unmated alphas in the crew raise their heads and look around as Ash's scent permeated the room and Kenny had to bite back a growl.

"Is that her?" Cody asked, looking back at Kenny after looking around for the source of the scent. Kenny opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't need to as Ash walked into the room, wearing the clothes which was black leggings along with a black tank top and a black and red checkered shirt jacket that Britt had brought her the night before. She paused in the doorway, having noticed the looks of the alphas in the gang and Kenny could see her cheeks redden.

"Um..." Kenny waved her over.

"Ash come over here." That got the attention of the rest of the gang and they looked up as Ash walked over to where Kenny was standing at the counter of the kitchen. In a possessive move that really Kenny had no right to make, he put an arm over Ash's shoulder and addressed the others.

"Everyone this is Ash, she'll be staying with us for a while so make her feel welcome."

"Why?" Finn asked from his seat on the couch on the other side of the lounge.

"That'll be explained later today." Kenny said. "We'll be having a meeting later." Just as he expected, a couple members of the gang wasn't happy about that and expressed that through groaning and whining about it. He just ignored them as he turned to her.

"Grab whatever you want to eat." He said. "I want to discuss the meeting with you before it happens." Her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I'm gonna be allowed in the meeting?"

"Well..." Kenny chuckled. "It is partially about you, I'm sure you'll want to be able to speak for yourself, yeah?" 

She nodded. "That's settled then." Kenny waited for her to grab what she wanted to eat and after Ash picked a donut from the pastry box on the counter, he led them over to where he spoken to Cody the night before.

The two of them sat down and Kenny let her eat in peace for a little bit, long enough that she had just about a bite left of the donut she'd been eating, before he spoke.

"So." He said. "I want to know what you're comfortable with everyone else knowing."

"About?"

"The whole situation really." He sighed. "I'll be telling them you're an omega, I want everyone to be on watch for Maxwell so I'll be telling them that he was keeping you hostage. It's up to you just how detailed you want it to go." Ash took a bite of the donut and sat quietly as she thought about it.

"I don't think I really care about how much they know." She said finally. "Like my parents traded me to Maxwell in exchange for their debt being forgiven, he planned to bond me in order to gain power. Tell them that." Kenny nodded before turning around to the gang. He knew an alpha had to go with Ash for protection but he didn't want it to be an unbounded alpha. He didn't want them to get distracted by her scent.

And other reasons.

"Darby, Britt, come over here!" The beta and alpha in question ended their conversations with others in the gang and walked over to Kenny and Ash, who stood up from their seats as they approached. "Ash, this is Britt and you've already met Darby." He looked at the other two. "Ash needs some clothes while she's staying here so I want you to take her." They nodded and Darby motioned for Ash to follow him. They walked out of the lounge while Britt and Kenny stayed behind for a bit. He pulled out his wallet, looking for the right card.

"So?" Britt started, once the two of them were out of earshot. "What was that about earlier?"

"What are you talking about?" Kenny asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Putting an arm around her." Britt said. "Come on Kenny, that was a possessive move and you know it." The alpha rolled his eyes, handing over the card he used for business.

"Just shut up and do what you're told." He said, practically confirming it. She laughed and hurried to catch up with Darby and Ash.

Once Kenny heard the sound of a car revving and tires squealing, he walked into the meeting room. He started clearing off the table, stacking notes and files from the raid the night before into a box to be burned later.

He wasn't alone for long, a couple minutes after Kenny had started clearing the table, Cody walked in the room and closed the door behind him.

"Well, you certainly fit the role of possessive alpha, don't you?" Cody said, chuckling. He glared up at him.

"Either help me clean up or shut up." Cody laughed, moving to pile up some of the papers at his end of the table. "Aww, are you embarrassed?" He teased. 

Kenny just ignored him. While everyone in the gang was close, Cody was probably the only one who could get away with teasing Kenny like this. They known each other the longest after all, since the time before Kenny worked for Maxwell, while they both still thought they end up in normal careers.

They worked in silence for a while, until the table was completely clear of anything from the night before. Kenny was just wondering if he should set up Adam's computer and the projector when the silence was broken.

"Seriously though." Cody said, the teasing tone completely gone. "Do you like her?" Kenny pursed his lips. He had to admit to himself, he found the omega attractive and there was something addicting to her scent. But Kenny was a gang boss, this wasn't the life he wanted for the omega he ended up with.

"No." He answered. "Not like that."

"That could change."

"It won't." Kenny said, moving to take Adam's laptop out of the safe they kept it in. "We're just protecting her from Maxwell. Once he's dead, Ash can leave and continue on with her life."

"Okay." He hummed. "Keep telling yourself that Omega." Kenny heard the door open and shut and when he looked up, Cody was gone.

××××××

There were thundering footsteps when they returned and Kenny looked up from his spot in front of the TV just in time to see Darby and Ash sprint up the steps. A minute later, Britt walked into the lounge.

"How'd it go? Kenny asked. 

She shrugged, heading over to the couch and sitting next to Kenny.

"No sign of Maxwell if that's what you're asking." She said. "Other than that, I'm pretty sure Darby and Ash are best friends now." 

Kenny chuckled. "Yeah, I saw that."

Britt handed the card back to Kenny. "She get everything she needed?" 

The alpha nodded. "A couple things more too."

"Like what?"

She furrowed his eyebrows. "Some omega products, a fidget toy, and a Nerf gun."

Kenny raised his eyebrows. "Okay, I can understand the omega products, even the fidget toy, but a Nerf gun?" 

She just shrugged again. "I don't know, she said something about missing holding a gun?"

Kenny stared at her for a second before laughing. "Does she realize who she's living with at the moment?" Britt joined Kenny in laughing just as Darby and Ash bounded back down the stairs. Kenny stood up from the couch and stretched.

"Go let everyone know the meeting's starting soon, Darby." He walked over to the stairs to where there was an intercom that was connected to all the apartments. Kenny motioned for Ash to follow him into the meeting room.

He walked to the other side of the room and sat in his seat at the head of the table. "You can sit here by the way." He pointed to the chair on his left.

"Alright." She said before moving to sit down.

It didn't take long for everyone to gather in the meeting room. Cody took his seat on Kenny's right, Darby next to Cody, Adam next to Ash, where his laptop was set up, and everyone else filled in the rest of the chairs. There were two chairs empty on the opposite side of the table.

"Someone take notes to give to Roman and Dean." Kenny said and he saw Finn grab a notepad and pen from the middle of the table. He clapped his hands. "Okay, I know there's normally a couple weeks for us to rest up after a raid but this can't wait. Yesterday during the raid when Cody and I went looking for the valuable, we didn't find an object." He motioned to Ash. "This morning I introduced you to Ash here, we found her in the warehouse. In exchange for forgiving their debt to her, her parents gave her to Maxwell." At that, most of the alphas looked anywhere between disgusted and sick. One of the betas, Nick, spoke up.

"Why?" 

Kenny remembered that betas couldn't smell other types alphas and omegas the way the other two genders could.

"She's a different kind of omega." He explained. "Maxwell saw an opportunity to gain power in her." 

Finn paused his writing, looking up at Kenny with a horrified expression on his face. "He wanted to force a bond..." 

Kenny nodded. "Yeah, he wanted to." The gang began murmuring amongst themselves and Kenny took the opportunity to check how Ash was doing. She was leaned back in the chair, swiveling back and forth, looking down at what Kenny could only assume was the fidget toy she gotten. When Kenny was quiet for a bit, Ash looked up at him and gave him a small smile. Kenny took that to mean she was okay and he turned his attention back to his gang. He cleared his throat and the muttering quieted down.

"Ash is going to be staying with us until it's safe for her to leave." He took a deep breath in before smiling. "Which means it's time to finally plan out a way to kill Maxwell."

"Fuck yes!" Britt shouted out, the loudest of the cheering coming from the gang. A lot of them had personally lost something or someone because of Maxwell, and everyone wanted him dead. He let them celebrate for a minute before clearing his throat again. Once everyone quieted down, he turned to Ash.

"You'll probably know the most out of any of us of the layout of Maxwell's bases." He said. "You have any information that could help us?" Everyone was quiet while Ash was thinking. They weren't kept waiting long before she spoke up.

"I know where his main base and personal house are." She said. "I've been inside each so I know the general layout as well." 

Kenny clapped his hands together. "Good." He said, then reached out for the projector remote and turned it on, "Where are they?"

"His house is just outside the city." The blonde said, and Adam started typing on his laptop. Projected onto the wall was a digital map of the city and Adam spoke up. "Which direction?" 

Ash looked at the image and pursed her lips. "East." 

Adam zoomed into the eastern outskirts of the city and waited for Ash to continue describing the location. They went back and forth, Ash giving directions and Adam following them until finally, they were all looking at a large house. 

"Yeah, that's the one." Adam nodded and brought up a second map. They repeated the process for finding the main base and when they finished, Adam wrote down the addresses of each building before looking over to Kenny.

"I'll have the blueprints to each building in a couple days." Kenny nodded before addressing the gang as a whole again.

"Don't try anything just yet." He instructed. "I cannot stress that enough. I know that he's hurt us all in some way or another but we need to be careful not to let him know we're going to try anything." He waited until they all agreed before he dismissed them.

There was some bustling as everyone left their seats, talking amongst each other. Ash pocketed her fidget toy and followed everyone out of the room, not quite sure where to go or what to do.

He was saved from awkwardly standing where she was by Darby who waved her over. She walked over to the media area and she sat down while Darby moved around, turning on the TV and a gaming system, before sitting down next to Ash and handing her a Wii remote.

"You ever play?" He asked and Ash nodded, smiling.

"Hell yeah!" She said excitedly. "I play this all the time with my friend Rhea." Darby smiled, pointing the remote at the TV and switching sources until the Wii U menu was on the screen.

"Good."

An hour later, most of the gang was gathered around the couch as Darby and Ash battled on Super Smash Bros.

Across the room, Kenny was leaning up against the kitchen counter, watching from afar. Darby screamed as Ash knocked his character off the edge of the arena and she cackled at his reaction.

He barely noticed Cody walk over to him until he spoke up. "This is gonna be a huge job man." 

He nodded. "Trust me, I know." Ash screamed that Darby was cheating as his Kirby ate Ash's character and jumped off the side of the map.

"We'll need more manpower."

"I'll be calling Becky tomorrow."

"We'll have to do some digging for information too." Cody pointed out, talking over Darby's screeches. "Like how many men he has at each place and the guard schedules."

"I know." Kenny sighed, watching Ash jump from the couch in triumph to the cheers of the gang when she won the round. "I'll have Dean and Roman on it once they're back." 

Kenny knew what he was getting himself and the gang into.

They certainly had their work cut out for them.


	3. Chapter 3

She paused on her way to the lounge the next morning, stopping on the bottom step and sniffing at the air. There was something unfamiliar in the scent but she could identify it as an omega. As far as Ash knew, there wasn't any omegas in the gang. She slowly peeked around the wall and took a quick look around the lounge, but there wasn't anyone there. 

As she walked down the last step, confused to where the omega scent was coming from, her stomach grumbled and she decided to let it go in favor of making some food, and she headed over to the kitchen.

She was just reaching the fridge when the door to the meeting room opened and Kenny walked out, followed by two people Ash didn't even recognize. The smaller of the two newcomers noticed Ash immediately and smiled, heading towards her while Kenny and the other kept talking. As he came closer to Ash, the omega scent got stronger.

"Heya!" The omega spoke as he reached her, holding out his hand, "Name's Dean."

She reached out and shook Dean's hand. "Ash."

Dean's eyes widened briefly in recognition at hearing her name before continuing.

"Nice to meet you." He said. "I'm sorry I couldn't be here earlier to introduce myself, Roman and I were on an assassination mission and couldn't make it back until today."

She ignored the assassination part and raised an eyebrow. "Roman?" The blonde turned and motioned over to the person talking to Kenny.

"That's my mate, Roman." Ash quickly glanced over at Dean's neck, where there was a mating mark scar on his collar bone. He turned back towards Ash and she looked away from the mark. "It's been awhile since we've had another omega around here, it'd be pretty cool if we could hang out sometime."

Ash couldn't help but smile at the suggestion. "I'd like that."

By the meeting room, Kenny and Roman were talking quietly.

"Look, I know you just came back from a mission but I need you and Dean to head out again."

Roman took a quick glance over to his mate and the other omega before looking back over at Kenny with a concerned look. "Does it have to do with her?" 

After Dean and Roman had gotten back and discussed their last mission, Kenny had given them the notes from the meeting yesterday and explained what was going on with the omega.

"It has more to do with taking down Maxwell."

"Which is connected to Ash, so that's definitely a yes Kenny." He said with a small smirk on his face. 

The alpha just rolled his eyes at him. "Whatever. I need you two to head out and go looking for some of Maxwell's gang who would snitch under some pressure."

"What kind of information are you looking for here?" Roman asked, crossing his arms.

"Guard schedules mostly." He said. "If you can find anyone who knows more about Maxwell's plans for Ash, that's even better." Roman nodded before looking over at the two omegas.

"You should probably get her a phone if she doesn't already have one." He said. "It'll be good for her to be able to get in contact with someone if she needs to." 

Kenny nodded, watching Ash as she laughed at something Dean said.

"I'll have to do that."

Roman smirked at him. "We'll start looking right away." He said. "Let us know if you need us to do anything else."

Kenny nodded once before Roman headed over to the two omegas. He wrapped his arm around Dean's waist and whispered something in his ear before the two of them left the lounge.

Once the two of them were gone, Ash started moving around the kitchen, pulling out ingredients to make breakfast. Kenny had noticed that she seemed really comfortable around the base in the short amount of time she's been there, and he was glad that the omega felt safe enough to settle in.

He watched as Ash reached up into a cabinet and he saw the shirt she wore rise up, exposing the skin of her stomach. He couldn't pull his eyes away, having the sudden urge to run his hand over her skin, wondering if it was really as soft as it looked…

He shook his head, leaving the room before that thought could go any further. He reminded himself that Ash was only here until Maxwell was no longer a threat to her, and after that… 

Well, he didn't know what would happen. The omega could come over every once and awhile and at least Kenny would get to see her. Or she might never come back and they never see her again. As much as that saddened him to think about, it was still a possibility.

He closed the meeting room door behind him and headed for his chair, sitting down and reaching for the phone in front of him. He dialed the familiar number and lifted the phone to his ear, the person on the other end of the line picking up after only a couple rings.

"Kenny! Long time, no chat." 

Kenny chuckled as he shook his head. "Well, it's been a bit hectic here Becky." He said. "I actually called for a business reason though."

"Well go ahead then, I'm all ears." 

Kenny explained what had happened at the raid and added that they were going to take down Maxwell.

"I hope this is an invitation to join." Becky said after Kenny finished explaining. "Because I'll be severely disappointed if it's not."

"We need more people." He said. "We were hoping you'd be able to help."

"Well no shit, I'll be happy to help take the bastard down." The Irishwoman said. "What do you need from me?"

"I've got Adam looking into the blueprints for his base and personal home." He said. "Once Adam got those, I'll need you and a couple of your gang members to come to the base and help us make a plan."

"We'll be there." Becky answered. "Just call and let us know when."

"Will do, thanks."

"The pleasure's all mine."

After he finished talking with Becky, he spent the rest of the day making calls to suppliers and dealers, making sure the rest of his business was taken care of while his main gang was held up with planning against Maxwell.

By the time he left the meeting room it was late and the sun had already gone down. The only ones still in the lounge were Cody, Darby, and Ash, who all sat on the sectional watching a movie. When the meeting room door opened, the blonde looked over at him and smiled. "Hey Kenny! You've been in there all day, what's been going on?"

Kenny shrugged, closing the door behind him. "Just taking care of business." He said before talking to Cody. "Becky is on board by the way."

"Thank god." Cody said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "We'll actually stand a chance now." Kenny just rolled his eyes and walked around to the back of the sectional, looking at the screen in front of them, seeing a Marvel movie just starting.

"We ate while you were working." She said. "There's some leftovers in the fridge." He made his way to the kitchen and looked in the fridge, finding some leftover slices of pizza in a sandwich bag. He took one and ate it cold, before heading back over to the others, deciding to watch the movie with them before heading to bed. He walked around the sectional and sat next to Ash.

By the time the movie had ended, he was the last one awake. On the opposite side of the sectional, Darby was curled up against Cody's side and Cody's arm was around Darby. Ash had maneuvered herself so that she was lying down, her head on Kenny's lap. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, Kenny had started running his fingers through Ash's hair and he kept going when she seemed to melt under his touch.

The alpha glanced over to the clock on the TV stand and saw that it was past midnight. He knew he'd have to move and go to bed but he didn't want to leave the three of them asleep on the sectional overnight. If he did he knew he'd have a cranky and sore Cody in the morning and he wasn't willing to deal with that. 

He glanced around and his eyes fell on a decorative pillow on the next seat over. He reached over to grab it, careful not to disturb Ash as he did, and threw it at Cody, managing to hit him in the face with it. Cody was startled awake and glared at him, ready to yell at him, when Kenny held a finger to his lips and pointed down at Ash, signaling him to be quiet so he didn't wake her up. Cody just narrowed his eyes and flipped Kenny off before untangling himself from Darby, gently waking him up as well.

Kenny turned his attention back to Ash, trying to figure out how to do this without waking her up. In the end, he carefully lifted her head from his lap and moved from his seat, resting the omega's head back on the seat. He glanced over at Cody and Darby, seeing that Cody had coaxed Darby into standing up and was guiding him to the stairs.

He slipped his hand underneath Ash's back and legs and gingerly lifted her up, the omega light and easy for Kenny to carry. The omega stirred briefly, moving so her head rested against Kenny's chest, before going still again. He walked over to the steps and Cody turned off the lights before the two of them brought the other two upstairs. 

Cody stopped a couple floors up to take Darby to his apartment while Kenny continued to carry Ash up the stairs to her floor. Despite Ash feeling as light as a feather to Kenny, he still cursed himself for not thinking to install an elevator when he was renovating the building.

He stopped at her door, only now just realizing that one, he didn't have a key to Ash's apartment, and two, he didn't have a free hand to open the door. He stood there awkwardly for a couple minutes, trying to figure out what to do before Cody arrived.

"Cody." He said quietly. "Can you help me out here?" He stopped in front of his apartment door on the opposite side of the hallway before glancing up at Kenny. "With what?"

"I don't have a key." The alpha said. "And I can't open the door."

Cody pursed his lips before reaching into his pocket. For a second, Kenny thought that he might have a copy of Ash's key, but he just unlocked his own door and opened it. "Your problem."

He groaned. "You're an asshole."

"Should've thought about that before waking me up with a pillow to the face." Cody said sarcastically before shutting his door. 

Kenny sighed, knowing that he'd have to wake her up if he was going to get her to bed.

"Ash?" She stirred but didn't wake up. "Ash, wake up." She opened her eyes a little.

"Mhmm?"

"I need you to wake up so I can open your door." With her eyes squinted, she looked around before settling back in his arms.

'Key's 're in m' back 'ocket." She slurred sleepily. "Go a'ead an' grab 'em." Kenny paused for a second before moving the arm supporting her back. She moved to slip her arms around the back of Kenny's neck so he could use that arm and she buried her face into Kenny's shirt. 

Kenny did his best to ignore that as he slipped his hand into the back pocket of Ash's jeans. He didn't find the keys in that one so he moved to the next. She started quietly giggling.

"What's so funny?" He asked, grabbing the keys and reaching out to unlock the door with his now free hand.

"You touched m' butt." She giggled out and Kenny rolled his eyes.

"I know I did." He said, turning the key and opening the door while Ash just continued giggling.

"You can do it again if you want."

His eyes widened. "Okay…" He said, wondering just how tired Ash was. "You sound euphoric."

"Huh... Euphoric." She sighed out, tightening her arms around the back of Kenny's neck as he carried her to her room. "I've always liked that word."

"Okay." He said, walking through the door to her bedroom and setting her down on the bed. "I think you need to go back to sleep."

He moved to pull away from the blonde but she wouldn't let go of him. Kenny looked up at Ash and found that their faces were close… 

Had her eyes always been that dark blue?

"Can you stay with me?" She asked and he started to wonder if she was drunk on top of being tired.

"Ash-"

"Please?" She gave him a look that could put a puppy to shame and Kenny couldn't say no.

"Alright." He sighed. "Get in bed." 

The omega smiled and unwrapped her arms from around Kenny's neck. He stood up straight and watched as Ash kicked her shoes off and fully clothed, climbed under the covers. She patted the other side of the bed and Kenny walked around to the other side and laid down. Ash cuddled into Kenny's side from under the covers and Kenny stiffened a bit, unsure what to do. It was quiet for a bit before she spoke up again.

"You're shit at cuddling."

"Uhm…"

"Here." She sat up and grabbed the wrist of Kenny's arm closest to her and moved it so it was around her shoulders. She laid back down and cuddled back into Kenny's side taking the wrist of his other arm and moving it so Kenny's hand was resting on Kenny's waist. "That's better." He decided to just go along with it.

It was a few minutes before she was asleep again and Kenny grew more tired, eventually closing his eyes. As odd as he knew this was, it felt right.

He never had a better night's sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Kenny startled awake, wondering for a second what woke him up before his phone rang loudly again from his bedside table. He groaned and reached out to grab it, squinting his eyes to see the contact screen. He saw Dean's name and swiped his phone screen, answering the call.

"Hello?"

"We're back at the base." Dean said. In the background, Kenny could hear growling and snarls. He furrowed his eyebrows and sat up in bed.

"What's going on?'

"We've got a couple guys from Max's gang." Dean said. "We'll need a couple alphas down here to deal with one of them. The beta's out cold but we can't knock the alpha out and Roman's having issues containing him."

Kenny threw back the covers and got out of bed. "I'll be down in a bit with a couple of the others." He hung up and threw on some holy jeans from the floor and tugged a white t-shirt over his head before slipping his shoes on and rushing out of his apartment. He hurried down the stairs and jogged down the hallway, stopping at Cody's apartment door. He banged on the door for a minute until Cody opened the door, looking tired and disgruntled.

"It's four in the fucking morning!" He snapped. "The fuck do you want?"

"Roman and Dean are back with some guys from Maxwell's gang."

Cody seemed to wake up more at that. "What do I need to do?"

"Wake up Seth and Finn." He answered. "Roman's having some issues with the alpha they brought in."

Cody nodded and rushed back into his apartment. It took less than a minute for him to come back dressed in a grey tank top that showed his neck tattoo and black pair of jeans and he ran down the hall and down the stairs, Kenny following close behind.

"What's going on?" Kenny jumped and turned around, finding Ash behind him, barefoot and was wearing shorts along with her Dead Inside hoodie on, her curly hair somewhat crazy as she looked over at him. 

"What are you doing up?" He asked urgently, continuing down the flights of steps. He didn't have time for this.

"I heard you and Cody talking in the hall." She said, following Kenny. "Just wondered what was going on."

He sighed. "Roman and Dean came back with some people from Maxwell's gang." He explained.

"Can I help with anything?" 

Kenny stopped and turned around on the steps leading into the lounge. He could hear growling and snarls more clearly now than he could over the phone.

"I don’t think so no."

It had been a week since the night Kenny had spent in Ash's apartment and the two of them had ended up closer because of it. Turns out she hadn't been drinking, just really tired with no brain to mouth filter. 

According to the blonde, she just said whatever was on her mind when she was really tired without even thinking about it.

It made Kenny wonder what she felt towards him if that was the first thing that came to mind that night.

"Stay in the lounge." He said. "Go back up to your apartment, whatever. Just don't go into the lobby or near the interrogation room. It's not gonna be pretty."

"I've seen worse ya know…"

Kenny just sighed again. "Ash, I don't want you to see what I'm about to do to these guys." He said. "Please?"

She pursed her lips before she nodded.

"Okay." 

Kenny gave her a small smile before turning and hurrying down to the lobby and towards the basement interrogation room. Roman, Seth and Finn were manhandling the alpha through the door and Kenny went down the stairs and closed the door behind them. 

Cody and Dean were securing the unconscious beta to a chair while Seth and Finn were strapping the struggling alpha to another, Roman pointing his gun at the alpha's head.

"Calm down man." He said. "It'll be easier for all of us if you stop struggling." The alpha glared at him, but stopped struggling. Kenny watched the alpha look around the room, sniffing at the air. His eyes finally landed on Dean and he sneered.

"Who let the cum dump join a gang?" In a split second after the alpha said that, Roman was lunging at the alpha and going for his throat. Cody jumped to grab onto him, struggling a little to hold him back.

"I'll fucking kill you if you even look at my omega one more time!" Roman growled. Dean moved over to him and started talking quietly to him. Cody let go of Roman when he was calmed down enough and Seth and Finn backed away from the chair, the alpha securely strapped to it. 

Kenny walked further into the room, towards Dean and Roman. 

"You've done your job." He told Dean, patting him on the shoulder. "You two go rest up and relax for a while." He didn't need Roman getting riled up if the alpha called Dean another omega slur and he didn't want to subject Dean to the scumbag anymore. 

The omega nodded and took Roman's hand, leading him out of the room. Kenny turned to Cody and Finn. "You two can leave as well, Seth's gonna help with this." The two alphas nodded before following Dean and Roman out of the room.

Kenny looked at the two captives. The beta was still out cold so they have to start with the alpha.

Good, he couldn't wait to cut the scumbag.

He reached for an empty chair that was by the wall and pulled it towards him, moving it in front of the alpha. He sat in the chair and leaned forward.

"So..." He started. "I'm gonna assume you're a guard, yes?" The alpha said nothing, clearly loyal to Maxwell and very unwilling to talk. Kenny waited a couple seconds before looking at Seth.

"How's fire sound for this one?" The brunette smirked and walked over to a tray set near the wall. He grabbed a blowtorch and waited for Kenny to give his instructions. He looked back at the alpha.

"One more chance, are you a guard for Maxwell?"

Nothing.

"Arm first Seth."

He lit the blowtorch and held the flame to the alpha's left arm, running it along the whole arm. The alpha just grunted, not even flinching. Kenny watched the skin blister and burn, the skin discoloring and turning red, purple, even black in some places. 

After a minute of this, Kenny nodded to Seth and he pulled the blowtorch away. The alpha let out a barely audible sigh.

"Gonna tell me if you're a guard yet?"

"Fuck you, you son of a bitch!" Kenny looked at Seth again.

"Other arm."

Seth moved to the alpha's right side and ran the flame along that arm, the alpha clenching his jaw and his breathing becoming more labored at the pain. The process was repeated over and over again until the alpha's arm looked more like cooked meat than skin. Kenny finally stopped when the alpha was practically screaming. He leaned forward in his chair when Seth pulled the flame away again.

"Are you one of Maxwell's guards?” The alpha nodded and he smiled. 

Good, progress.

"Do you work at his main base?" The alpha nodded again and Kenny looked over towards Seth. "Get me latex gloves and a scalpel." The brunette grabbed the items from the table and handed Kenny the gloves and waited for him to put them on before handing over the scalpel. He stood up from the chair and moved to look at the burns along the alpha's arm, lightly moving his fingers along the skin. The alpha swore and struggled in the binds, trying to get away from Kenny as he exasperated the pain by touching the burns.

"I'm gonna need you to tell me the guard schedule." The alpha turned his head and spat in Kenny's direction. He had been expecting that reaction.

He took the scalpel and sliced into the cooked skin, the alpha's scream echoing in the room.

××××××

Kenny slipped off the gloves and tossed them towards the garbage can. He was covered in blood, his skin splattered with it, his clothes stained. The alpha was pale and losing consciousness and they luckily gotten the information they needed from him, they now knew the guard schedule and how many guards there were and the alpha was no use to them anymore.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kenny could see the beta stirring and he knew now would be the best time to finish up with the alpha so he grabbed the scalpel again and slit the alpha's throat. The alpha let out a loud noise as he choked on his blood and the beta jumped and looked at the alpha as he gurgled his last breath and he stilled.

The beta immediately flipped out.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...."

"Nice of you to join us." Kenny said, moving over to the beta, Seth walking around the back of the chair with a knife in his hand. The beta looked around frantically, struggling violently enough that the chair started tipping backwards. Seth grabbed the back of the chair and held it in place.

"Now, I need you to tell me-"

"Whatever you want!" The beta exclaimed. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know." Kenny looked up at Seth and they exchanged an amused look with each other.

"Okay." He said. "What do you do for Maxwell?" 

"I work on keeping his prisoners contained."

"Like a guard?" 

The beta shook his head. "No, I improve the cells they're kept in." 

Kenny furrowed his eyebrows. 

Why had Roman and Dean brought this one in?

"Do you know anything about a female omega?" He asked and the beta nodded. 

"Maxwell had me custom make a cell for the female omega."

He clenched his jaw. "What did you do?"

"I fortified one of the cells in his main base, installed heavy duty locks in the door and a metal collar for punishments." 

Kenny took a deep breath, doing his best not to react to the information. "What about his personal home?"

"He doesn't keep prisoners there." The beta said. "It's really only used for high paying clients." 

The alpha nodded, noting that he wouldn't need the blueprints for Maxwell's house anymore.

"Do you know Maxwell's plans for the omega?" The beta shook his head and Kenny pursed his lips, letting out a mock disappointed sigh. "I'm disappointed, I thought you said you tell me what I wanted to know?" The beta freaked out again.

"I really don't know!" He screamed as Kenny walked away from the chair. "Maxwell doesn't even know where this omega is!" 

The alpha smiled, happy that Ash wasn't on Maxwell's radar yet. He turned around and nodded at Seth.

"No!" The beta screamed. "No! Please! I told you everything you wanted, please!" Seth held the knife to the beta's neck, the beta sobbing audibly in response.

"I can't have you going back to Vincent." Kenny said.

"I won"t! I won't, please-!" With that, Seth sliced the beta's throat, cutting off his pleas. Kenny waited until the beta stopped breathing before speaking again.

"Call our cleaners." He said and Seth nodded.

"I'm on it." And with that, Kenny left the interrogation room and headed for the lounge. There were a couple people from the gang scattered around the room. Ash was sat in front of the TV and she looked up when Kenny entered the room. She smiled brightly at him and Kenny smiled right back before he noticed Adam in the corner of the room, talking on his phone and staring at his laptop. He headed over there, reaching him just as he finished his call. Adam groaned and put his head in his hands.

"What's going on?" Adam looked up at him and sighed.

"I'm having some issues getting the blueprints." He said. "Apparently Maxwell's paying some people really well to protect the blueprints of the buildings he owns. My contact is having trouble getting to them discreetly." 

Kenny nodded and patted his back. "Well, if it makes things easier, we won't need the blueprints for Maxwell's home anymore, just the base." 

The beta sighed in relief. "Good." He said, turning to look at Kenny. He looked down and wrinkled his nose. "You should probably take a shower soon, you stink and covered in blood dude!"

Kenny glanced down at himself and couldn't say he disagreed, he was indeed completely covered in blood.

"Yeah." He said bluntly, looking back up at Adam. "Let me know as soon as you have the blueprints." Adam nodded and Kenny headed for the stairs.

××××××

Once he showered and changed into a grey tank top and black gym shorts, he went right back to the lounge, finding most of the gang wrapping up dinner. He hadn't realized that he had been in the interrogation room so long, it was already half past six at night.

Across the room at the island by the kitchen, Darby caught sight of Kenny and waved him over. When the alpha reached the island, Darby handed him a white to go box.

"We ordered dinner from a fish fry at that church down the street." He said. "Made sure we got fried cod for you."

"Thanks." He headed towards the sectional where Ash, Cody, Britt and Dean were battling in a Super Smash Bros match, and sat next to Ash. He watched them play as he ate, Ash and Britt seemed to be doing the best out of the four of them, while Cody was just raging and Dean was calm as could be.

He stayed where he was even after he finished eating, just setting the empty to go box on the table next to the sectional.

Slowly, the room started clearing out. One by one, the players started clearing out, Britt leaving the base to spend the night with her mate, Cody finally rage quitting and storming up the stairs, Darby following him not long after, Roman leading a half asleep Dean up the stairs when the omega nearly fell asleep in the middle of a match. Finally, it was just Ash and Kenny. 

Neither one of them was ready to go to bed, so when Ash offered him a Wii remote, he took it. Ash picked as Lucina and Kenny picked Pit and they started their own little tournament.

After a few games, both of them had won an even number of times. During one particular match, Ash was getting her ass kicked and she was very vocal about her complaints.

"You motherfucker!" She screamed as Pit knocked Lucina off the level and she got K.O.'d, shoving Kenny's shoulder. "You have to be cheating, there's no way you're not!"

Kenny laughed, shoving her right back. "Maybe I'm just that good." 

The blonde narrowed her eyes and reached toward Kenny, tickling at the crook of his neck and his abdomen. He just raised an eyebrow in amusement. "What are you doing?"

"Punishing a cheater." She said, moving her hands along Kenny's skin to try and find his weak spot. "How the fuck aren't you incapacitated right now? You've gotta have a weak spot somewhere damnit…"

"I'm just not ticklish." He reached out for her and lightly tickled her side. Immediately, she let out a small scream and pulled back her hands, using them to try to block Kenny's.

"Noooo Kenny!"

"So you're ticklish, hmm?" He dug a bit harder into her sides as he tickled her and Ash let out high pitched scream.

"Stop! Stooooop!"

"Agree that I didn't cheat and maybe I'll consider it." He kept tickling her side with one hand and reached down to her foot with the other, lightly tickling the bottom of it. Ash kicked out in retaliation.

"Okay! Okay!" She laughed out. "You didn't cheat! You're actually just good at Smash Bros!" He withdrew his hands at her admission and smiled sweetly at her.

"See? That wasn't too hard was-" He was cut off when a cackling Ash launched herself at him, managing to knock the both of them off the sectional and onto the floor. The alpha laughed, wrapping his arms around Ash's back instinctively to protect her as they fell, his back hitting the floor and cushioning her fall. 

Their momentum kept them going for one more roll until they ended up with Ash lying on the floor, Kenny hovering over her.

Their laughter slowly died down and Kenny became hyper aware of the position they were in. They were both frozen for a second, just staring at each other, until he cleared his throat and moved, rolling so he was lying next to her on the floor.

"Sorry." Ash just waved her hand, dismissing Kenny's apology.

"Eh, nothing to be sorry for." She said. "My fault anyways." 

Kenny turned to look at her. "You alright?"

"I'm fine." She said, turning her head to look at Kenny, a teasing smile on her face. "I had a big, strong alpha to break my fall."

Kenny chuckled as he stood up. He reached a hand out to Ash, pulling her up when she took it. Once she was stood upright again, she stretched, glancing at the clock by the TV. "It's gotten late, I think I'm gonna be heading to bed. Goodnight Kenny."

"Night Ash."

She tilted her head to the side. "You know you can call me Ashley, right? It really doesn't matter which." 

Kenny couldn't help but smile "Alright, goodnight Ashley."

She smiled as she headed to the stairs and Kenny watched her leave the room. Once she was gone, Kenny sighed and ran both of his hands through his curly hair.

"I'm so fucked."

There was absolutely no way he was coming out the other side of this without developing feelings for the omega.


	5. Chapter 5

When Ash arrived in the lounge in the morning, she was surprised to find it busy with activity. She walked further into the room, glancing around to see if she could find Kenny, finally spotting him through the open door of the meeting room. She made her way into the room just as Kenny was wrapping up a call.

"What's going on?" She asked as Kenny hung up the phone.

"Adam's contact finally got the blueprints." He said. "Which means we can finally continue planning." 

The omega couldn't help but smile. "Awesome." She said but paused for a moment. "I don't have to be here for the planning, do I?"

The Canadian shook his head. "No, you don't." Then looked up at her with a somewhat worried look in his eyes. "Why?" 

She shifted in place, wondering how to word what she wanted to do. "I know what you're probably gonna say to this." She started. "But I was hoping I could go over to my parents' house and get my things."

Kenny frowned and got up from his chair, walked over to her, putting both of his hands on the blonde's shoulders. "Ash, I'm not sure that's a good idea." He said. "Maxwell probably has some of his men keeping an eye out on the place."

"Yeah, yeah I know." She rolled her eyes at him. "But I don't want to leave my stuff there. I just hope they haven't already thrown it out or some shit." 

Kenny pursed his lips before he sighed and let go of her, walking over to one of the filing cabinets that was against the wall. He opened up one of the drawers and dug around for a second before pulling out a phone. He motioned for Ash to come closer and she walked over to him.

"This is yours now." He said, swiping the screen unlocked. "It has all of our numbers programmed into it in just in case you need help when we're not around. When you head over to your parents’ house, don't grab your old phone, because Maxwell will probably be tracking the location of that one." 

She reached out to take the phone and she looked it over. It looked like a newer model, which meant it was probably expensive.

"How much was this?" She asked, glancing up at Kenny. 

He shrugged. "Doesn’t matter." He said, smiling. "You're keeping it. It's okay to take it Ash, it's not a big deal."

She playfully rolled her eyes. "Says the gang boss with millions of dollars." She said sarcastically before smiling. "But thank you." 

Kenny placed his hand on her back, leading her out of the room.

"No problem." He looked around the room for a second. "I'm assuming you want to head off to get your stuff as soon as possible?" 

She nodded. "My parents won't be home for awhile. They have work." 

Kenny smiled a little as he went by the door. "Dean! Darby!" He called over the two before looking back towards Ash "I'll have them come with you just in case." He turned his attention towards Dean and Darby, who just made their way over to them. "Take Ash to her parents' house and keep her safe while she's there."

"How far away is the house?" Darby asked. Ash scratched the back of her neck, thinking for a moment.

"It's on the other side of the city." She said and Darby nodded.

"We’ll drive there then." He said. "Dean and I'll just go grab some weapons and we'll meet you in the garage okay?" She nodded and they headed off. 

Kenny clapped his hands. "Okay!" He said. "I've got to get back to work, call me if anything happens while you're out." He said sternly. 

Ash huffed out a sigh on purpose and smirked. "I will. Just calm your tits dude!" 

Kenny rolled her eyes at her and headed back into the meeting room and sat in his spot at the head of the table. He turned on the projector and waited for the image of the blueprints to appear on the wall. He sat there studying them for a while, seeing which routes would be the best to go and the spots that would be the easiest to hide if they needed to. 

He knew they need to call Randy in to hack the security cameras and disable the security systems.

He looked away from the blueprints when Cody walked into the room, immediately walking over to his chair and sitting in it.

"When can we start this?" Kenny turned his chair back around to face him.

"We're waiting on Becky to get here." He stated. "Then we can start then." 

Cody seemed to be vibrating in his seat, which Kenny gave him a worried look. "You alright there?" He just nodded.

"I'm fine." He said. "Just really fucking eager to make this asshole bleed. After what he did to Brandi..." Kenny nodded. It's been a couple years since her death but it was still fresh in both of their minds.

"Don't worry." Kenny said as he patted him on the shoulder. "He's gonna pay."

××××××

Darby pulled up to the curb and put the car in park. They had to park a few blocks away from Ash's parents’ house because there just wasn't another spot to park closer.

"Your parents just had to live in the most populated part of the city." Darby muttered under his breath as they all exited the car and Ash laughed a little. 

"It was close to both of their jobs." She said, shrugging. "Not the friendliest neighborhood, but it was home." Dean checked his gun in his jacket before looking to Ash. 

"Stay in between us while we're walking." He said. "There are a lot of alleyways around here where Maxwell's men could hide and I would rather they grab me or Darby than you."

Ash nodded, agreeing that was the best plan considering she didn't know any self defense and the other two could easily kick someone's ass.

They made their way down the sidewalk and the ball of anxiety in the pit of her stomach grew with each step closer to the house they took. She wasn't afraid that Maxwell's men would be there, she knew Darby and Dean could protect her if they were.

It was just...

She grew up in that house and despite how she ended up leaving, she still had good memories there. And her parents, they raised their children well, they made sure she had a good childhood and was taken care of. Them just handing her over to Maxwell like they had, they betrayed her.

No, she was more afraid she end up crying when she went into the house than she was of being in danger.

They walked the few blocks towards the house and Ash paused in front of it.

"You alright?" Dean asked while Darby kept an eye on the area around them. Ash took a deep breath in and nodded.

"I'm good." She walked up to the house and jogged up the steps towards the door. She knew the door would be locked so she dug around in her jeans pocket for the paper clip she knew she needed and when she found it, she knelt down and started picking at the lock.

"The hell are you doing?" Darby asked.

"Door's locked." Ash explained deadpanned. "So I'm picking the lock."

"Yeah, yeah, I see that." Darby retorted. "But I'm just-"

"He wants to know how you know how to pick locks." Dean spoke for him, earning a playful glare from Darby. Ash just shrugged. "The whole neighborhood's a sketchy place." She said. "It comes in handy." The lock clicked and she turned the doorknob, swinging the door open. "Let's head in."

She just ignored everything in the house until she made her way to her bedroom. She made quick work of packing up her things, stuffing her laptop and power cord into the dark blue backpack she always kept in her closet, along with her movies, rock CDs, and video games. 

She decided to leave her gaming systems behind, knowing that the base had the same ones she did. She knew she'll have to take a second trip here to grab all of her computer equipment, there was no fucking way she was leaving any of that behind. She stuffed the clothes she didn't want to leave behind into plastic shopping bags and grabbed her 3DS case and charger before leaving the room.

"That everything?" Darby asked and Ash shook her head.

"I don't want to leave my PC here."

"I'll go drive the car up here then and we can bring it down." Darby jogged down the stairs and left the house, and Ash set the plastic bags down in the hallway before going back into her room, Dean following her. 

"Not a bad room." Dean said, looking around and Ash nodded.

"It wasn't always just my room." She said. "I used to have to share with my brother before I presented as an omega." She walked over to her desk and opened the drawer, digging around for something she almost forgot to bring with. She grabbed the photo album and slipped it into her backpack.

"Where is your brother?" He asked. 

Ash just shrugged. "Last I heard, he was in New York." She said before sighing. "Wanted to study law, see if he could make a difference in omega rights." 

Dean smiled at her. "He sounds great."

Ash just looked at the photo of her and her brother, putting on a small smile. "He's the best."

"I haven't seen my brothers in a while." Dean said. "Not since I moved here with Roman anyways."

"Why?"

"Where we grew up, male omegas were frowned upon." He said. "A lot of people were stuck in the old mindset of only males should be alphas and only females should be omegas and should be the housewives. My family included. When I presented, my parents made me take hormone suppressants and say I was a beta. Roman got me out of there as soon as we were both eighteen." 

She frowned. "I don't understand how people can still see things like that. She said. "If guys weren't meant to be omegas and girls weren't meant to be alphas then it just wouldn't happen, biology wouldn't allow it."

Dean held out a fist and Ash bumped it with her own.

"I completely agree." Dean's phone buzzed and he swiped the screen. "Darby's outside with the car." Ash brought the bags with her things in them down and brought them outside, where Darby had half parked the car on the sidewalk. Ash popped the bags in the trunk and she and Darby went back in to help Dean carry down the PC.

Soon, her things were all packed and the blonde was more than ready to get away from the house. She reached up to the hood of the trunk and slammed it shut.

"That should be all then." She said, glancing up at Dean and Darby. She paused when she saw the expressions on their faces and how Darby was reaching for his gun. Ash turned around and saw two guys walking towards them. "What's going on?"

"They're Maxwell's men." Darby said. Her eyes widened and turned back to them.

"Let's get out of here then!" She whispered-shouted. "What're we waiting for?!"

"They already saw you with us." Dean explained. "If we leave without taking care of them, they'll go straight to Maxwell." He looked around before taking Ash's wrist and pulling her quickly away from the men approaching them, Darby following close behind. Dean led them to a alleyway a couple buildings away and he pointed towards the dumpster against the left wall.

"Duck behind there." He ordered. "Don't come out until we get you." He gave her a little push on the back and Ash hurried over to the dumpster, ducking behind it and peeking around the corner to see what was happening.

Maxwell's men had reached the entrance of the alleyway, only to be met by bullets firing at them from Dean and Darby. They pulled out their guns as they took cover behind the wall at the entrance while nearby civilians screamed. Darby opened the side door of the building next to them and took cover behind that while Dean ducked behind a pile of wooden planks on the other side of the alley.

The two men left their cover and pushed closer, guns at the ready to shoot. Darby and Dean waited until they were walking by their hiding places before taking action. Dean used the butt of his gun to hit the one closest to him in the head, while Darby punched the other in the face. 

The one Dean hit fell to the ground while the one Darby punched barely reacted, turning to throw his own. He ducked out of the way of the first punch and the guy swung again, this time hitting him in the stomach. He stumbled back, coughing as he tried to get his breath back, and the guy punched him again, this time in the side of the head. He was sent sprawling to the ground, his gun leaving his hand and skidding across the pavement towards Ash.

She reached out for the gun immediately, stepping out from behind the dumpster just as the guy who punched Darby pulled out his gun and aimed. She lined up her own shot and pulled the trigger.

Blood splattered the wall beside them as the guy fell to the ground, a pool of blood growing around his head. Dean pulled out his own gun and shot the one he's been fighting, killing him where he was knocked to the ground.

She jogged over to them as Darby sat up and leaned against the wall, holding a hand to his head.

"You alright?" Darby nodded, pulling his hand away and wincing at the blood he saw.

"Yeah." He said. "I've had worse."

Dean sighed as he tucked his gun away again. "We should leave." He said. "The police will probably be here soon, someone was bound to call them." They left the scene as quickly as they could, keeping their heads low as civilians came out of hiding. 


	6. Chapter 6

When they arrived at the base, they left her things in the trunk in favor of cleaning up Darby's face, which was still bleeding and was starting to bruise. Darby and Dean headed for the medical room while Ash went to grab an ice pack from the freezer.

While she was digging around for one, the door to the meeting room opened and Cody walked out, glancing at her and raising an eyebrow.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for an ice pack." She replied, finally finding one at the very back of the freezer. "Darby got punched." She shut the door and turned towards Cody, only to find him walking into the medical room.

"Fucking hell Darby!" Cody said, loud enough that Ash was sure everyone in the meeting room could hear. "What the fuck happened?!" She made her way to the medical room to find Cody taking the cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide from Dean and cleaning the blood and cut up himself.

"A couple of Maxwell's men were waiting there." Dean said, moving to looking in one of the drawers and pulling out a box of butterfly bandages.

"I hope you took care of them." Kenny walked up behind Ash and placed a hand on her back. "You okay?"

The blonde nodded. "I’m fine."

Kenny furrowed his eyebrows. "I thought I told you to call if anything happened."

"Got a little preoccupied."

"Of course we took care of them." Darby said, wincing as Cody dabbed at the cut on his head with a hydrogen peroxide soaked cotton ball. "Well, more like Dean and Ash took care of them."

"Ash?" Darby nodded when Cody pulled away the cotton ball and reached for the box of butterfly bandages.

"Yep." He said. "Fucker got a good punch in and was about to blow my brains out when Ash shot him right in the head. Incredible aim too." Cody stiffened as he was applying the bandage to Darby's cut and Ash could hear him swearing under his breath. Darby reached out and placed his hand on Cody's shoulder.

"And you're okay with that?" Kenny asked. Ash turned towards him and leaned against the doorway. "What do you mean?"

"You killed someone." He said as he threw his hands in the air. "Are you alright?"

Ash scowled at him. "If this is because I'm an omega-"

It may not be in an omega's nature to kill and be violent, but goddamnit, she wasn't some weak ass omega.

Kenny shook his head. "No no that's not it."

"I think what he's trying to say is you're technically still a civilian." Dean said. "You probably aren't used to killing someone like we are." Kenny nodded and Ash was relieved.

"I'm fine." She said. "It was actually kind of satisfying."

Kenny's face briefly flashed in surprise but he then nodded.

"That's good." He said before looking up at Cody. "We should probably get back to the meeting." Cody just waves his hand. "It was almost done anyways." He said. "Let's just end it now and have another one tomorrow."

He just sighed and shook his head. "Fine." He said, walking back into the meeting room. Ash walked further into the room and handed Darby the ice pack, earning a smile from him as she pressed it to his head.

"Thanks."

"No problem." Dean and Ash left the medical room as the others started filing out of the meeting room.

"Are they-?" She asked, motioning back to the medical room, where Darby and Cody still were.

"Are they together?" Dean finished for her. "It's fairly new from what I can gather, but yeah, they are."

She raised an eyebrow and looked back over to Cody and Darby. "How does that work though?" She asked. "With a beta and an alpha…?"

"I'm not sure." He said. "And I don't think I want to know." Roman walked over to Dean and led him away and Ash was left standing by herself.

"I'm buying pizza for everyone!" She looked up and saw someone she didn't recognize holding up her phone. "What does everyone want?" Everyone started talking at once and the girl waved her hands. "Whoa whoa whoa! One at a time, people."

"Pepperoni!" Ash yelled out and several gang members voiced their agreements. The girl smiled over at the blonde.

"Pepperoni it is!" She said. "Royce write that down." Someone standing next to her, someone else Ash didn’t recognize but assumed was Royce took out her phone and started typing.

She saw Kenny walking over to her and smiled, ignoring everyone else as the girl took their orders.

"Who is that?" She asked. Kenny leaned on the counter near them and looked over at the girl.

"That's The Man. Also known as Becky." He said. She's the leader of one of our ally gangs."

She nodded and pointed out the other person. "And the other girl?" She asked.

"Who, Royce?"

"Yep." Kenny said. "That's kind of the name she goes by. If she wants you too know she'll tell you her real name." He glanced around the room. "Where the fuck is Bliss?"

"Bliss?"

"Yeah, she's Becky's mate. Ah." Kenny pointed towards Roman and Dean who were talking to someone Ash didn't recognize, presumably Bliss. "There she is."

"And I'm assuming that Bliss is not her real name either?"

Kenny shook his head, smiling. "Nope." He said. "We've all got the names we go by to the public. You probably know I go as Omega. Darby is just Darby, Cody is American Nightmare, Roman is Leati, Finn is Prince Devitt, Seth is Kingslayer, Dean's MOX, Adam goes by Hangman AP, Nick and Matt are the Young Bucks, Britt is D.M.D cause, well she's a dentist. And Randy, who you'll meet soon I think, goes by RKO."

Ash gave him a confused look. "RKO?"

Kenny just laughed a little and shrugged. "I don't know." He said. "He insisted that's what he wants be called."

"Yo Kenny!" Becky called out. "I'm assuming you don't want me to give the pizza place the address to your base right?"

Kenny rolled his eyes. "I better go order for her so she doesn't do something stupid." He said as he started walking away. "Go introduce yourself to Alexa, you two will probably get along." Ash nodded and headed over to Dean, Roman, and Alexa.

"Hey Ash!" Dean said as she reached them. "I'm assuming you and Alexa haven't met yet right?"

She shook her head. "No we haven't." She said, holding out her hand for Alexa to shake. "Nice to meet you Alexa."

"Nice to meet you too!" Alexa said. "Are you new to the gang or are you someone's mate?"

Ash shook her head.

"Neither." She said. "I'm Maxwell's target."

Alexa's eyes widened and gave her a saddened look. "Oh." She said. "Sorry."

The blonde just waved her hand. "Eh, it's fine." She said. "Kenny was kind enough to let me stay while we hunt down Maxwell."

Alexa let out a gasp and grabbed both of Ash's shoulders, shaking her gently. "Did he really?" She asked.

The omega took the girl's hands off of her shoulders and gave her a small smile. "Yeah, I've been here almost two weeks now."

Alexa glanced over at Dean and Roman briefly then looked around the room until she saw someone she knew and smirked. "Huh." She said. "Well the looks Omega keeps giving you make a lot more sense now."

The blonde looked at her with a confused look on her face. "Looks?" Alexa nodded. "What do you mean?"

"You do know he's looking at you like you're a piece of meat and he's a dog that hasn't eaten in weeks, right?"

Ash shook her head and sighed. "No? What the fuck kind of metaphor is that anyway?"

Alexa couldn't help but laugh as she took out the hair tie that was on her, the red tips of her hair showed. "Oh good grief." She said, before looking over at Dean and Roman. "Are they both clueless?" She asked as she put her hair up again in a messy bun. Roman just laughed while Dean sighed.

"See, it's pretty obvious." Alexa looked back over at Ash. "He likes you, girl!" She said excitedly. "Seriously, look at him." Ash looked over to where Kenny had walked off to and sure enough, he was looking at her and strangely enough, Alexa's metaphor was incredibly accurate. Kenny noticed her looking and smiled sheepishly before looking away and Ash's breath caught in her throat.

"Huh." The others laughed at her reaction.

She was left with that thought for the rest of the day. She stayed silent through the rest of Becky's gang visit and tried to sort out what all this could mean for her.

Obviously Kenny was a good looking guy, Ash would have to be blind not to think that. He was also easy to get along with and she enjoyed spending time with him.

But did she like him?

As the two gangs were saying goodbye to each other, she found herself thinking about what it would be like being with Kenny. He was a sweet guy and Ash could only imagine how much sweeter he was to his significant other. And she didn't mind that he was a gang boss, hell, if anything it was a bonus. Not only was he good looking, easy to get along with, and sweet, he was dangerous too and that alone made her blush.

"Hey Ash!" She was broken out of her thoughts to find Alexa walking towards her.

"Wassup?"

"Let's swap numbers, yeah?" She said. "You, Dean, and I should hang out sometime, get away from all the alpha pheromones." Ash laughed a little and nodded, pulling her new phone out of her pocket.

"Yeah, we'll have to do that once this whole Maxwell thing is over." She quickly looked up her own number in the phone settings before exchanging phones with Alexa and adding her number to Alexa's phone. Once they switched phones back, Ash looked at the contact Alexa had added, finding it labeled _Bliss._

"I'll see you tomorrow." She said. "We've got another meeting here."

The blonde smiled and nodded.

"See you." Alexa smiled back before walking over to Royce and Becky, who'd been waiting for her before they left.

She sighed as she put her phone back in her pocket, deciding to call it a night despite it only being seven at night. She headed towards the stairs but she was halfway up the flight of stairs before Kenny called her name. She turned around to see him standing at the bottom of the steps.

'Are you sure you're okay after what happened today?"

"What do you mean?"

Kenny just sighed. "I know you're tough." He said. "I'm not saying you aren't, but killing someone for the first time can really take a toll on someone."

Ash smiled softly, feeling a funny kind of fluttering in her stomach. "I promise I'm fine."

The alpha stayed silent for moment before he sighed. "Okay." He said. "If you ever do want to talk about it though, I'm always free to listen."

The blonde nodded. "I'll keep that in mind.

Kenny smiled at her.

"Goodnight Ashley.

"Goodnight Kenny."

Kenny walked back into the lounge and Ash continued up the stairs. By the time she turned the key to her apartment door, she came to a conclusion.

She was starting to fall for the alpha.


	7. Chapter 7

Kenny wondered how sad and pathetic he must've looked, just stood outside Ash's apartment, contemplating whether to knock on the door or not.

It's just, he couldn't get the idea of Ash shooting a gun out of his head. He wondered how accurate of a shot she was, what guns she knew how to use, just how much she could do with a gun. And it completely boggled his mind that Ash wasn't even phased that she killed someone near her parents' house three days ago.

He shook his head and continued down the hallway, heading down to the lounge. None of that was relevant information and he needed to focus on the plan, it was going well and he was expecting their hacker to come over later in the day to look at the security and positions of the cameras in Maxwell's base.

He reached the lounge, just stepping off the bottom step only to nearly run into Darby, who was carrying a few tied grocery bags and had a backpack slung over his shoulder. He sighed when he saw Kenny.

"Thank god." He mumbled. "Listen Kenny, can you do me a favor?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Depends on what the favor is."

"Finn and I have a job to do and I needed my trunk cleared out since Finn's car is in the shop and we can't use it." Kenny furrowed his eyebrows, trying to remember if he given Darby and Finn a job to do.

"What job?" He reached out to take a couple of the grocery bags from Darby.

"We've got a meeting with an ammo supplier." He explained, passing the bags over to Kenny. "We're running low and with the raid on Maxwell coming up we need to put in another order soon so we're prepared when the time comes." Kenny nodded, reaching out to take the backpack from him.

"Alright, get going then." Darby smiled and mock saluted him, stepping away from him.

"Thanks Ken!" He said. "Just bring those to Ash and let her know her stuff is outside her door." Darby turned around and jogged down the stairs and Kenny turned around to head back up the stairs.

When he reached Ash's apartment, he saw the PC setup that he hadn't noticed before sitting just outside the door. He placed the bags down on the ground and was just about to knock on the door when he heard a loud boom from inside, like something hitting the floor hard. Kenny furrowed his eyebrows and just opened the door without knocking, wondering if something was wrong. 

What he found was the absolute last thing he was expecting.

Ash, wearing her skull hoodie along with black shorts and knee high black and white striped socks, was running across the living room, falling to her knees and skidding across the floor and behind the kitchen counter, a Nerf pistol in hand. 

She slid behind the counter and there was a moment with no action before she peeked over it, aiming the Nerf gun and shooting, hitting a piece of paper with a red bullseye drawn on it from across the room. It was a perfect hit right in the center and Ash seemed to be playing out quite the scene as she ducked and rolled from behind the counter and took cover behind the chair she ended up behind. 

She repeated the same steps, ducking behind the chair and shooting the Nerf gun, hitting the bullseye once again. She then stood up and sprinted across the room towards her couch, jumping just as she reached it, her hands reaching out to catch herself, gripping the back of the couch and guiding the rest of her body over it. 

She landed behind the couch and ducked behind it and Kenny smiled, impressed by what he was seeing. He cleared his throat loudly and he heard a high pitched screech from the omega. It was almost comical how quickly Ash sprang up from behind the couch, her face red and eyes wide.   
"Kenny!" She squeaked out. Kenny was smirking at her as he headed further into the apartment, glancing around. There was several targets taped to the walls around the room and each one had at least one Nerf dart stuck to it, right in the center of the drawn out bullseye. "I didn't know you were here!"

"That was really impressive." He commented, walking over to one of the targets. "Specially with a Nerf gun, of all things." Ash looked down at the toy gun in her hand before shrugging.

"I- uh." She stammered. "I grew up with guns, learned to shoot them real early." Kenny turned towards her, images of the omega shooting different varieties of gun coming to mind.

He couldn't decide which gun Ash would look hotter holding.

The blonde looked a bit uncomfortable under Kenny's gaze, reaching behind her and scratching the back of her neck. "Um, did you come here for something?" Kenny blinked and cleared his throat again.

"Did you know we have a gun range here?" Ash's eyes somehow got even wider than they were before.

"You do?" Kenny laughed at the wonder in the omega's voice.

"Of course we do." He said. "You do know who you're staying with, right?" He smiled at her, who was wearing the expression of a child who's just found out Christmas came early. "Listen, I brought up the stuff you grabbed from your parents' house, let's bring that in and put it away and then we'll head out of the gun range, yeah?" Ash frantically nodded, vaulting herself over the back out the couch again, tossing the Nerf gun on the couch cushions.

She brought in the bags and started unpacking them, stuffing the clothes hastily into drawers without even bothering to organize it. She had Kenny bring her PC into one of the spare rooms in the apartment and said she'd set it up herself later. It wasn't long before everything had been brought in and put where she wanted it to go. Kenny glanced around to make sure everything was put away before turning to Ash, smiling.

"Let's head downstairs." He had barely finished his sentence before Ash was practically running down the hallway, her feet pounding loudly on the stairs as she ran down them. Kenny chuckled, jogging behind her. 

Ash was pretty far ahead of him by the time he reached the lobby again.

"Why exactly did Ash come running through here?" Kenny turned around and saw Nick and Matt sitting on the couch, both of them looking amused.

"She just found out that we have a gun range." Kenny explained. "I'm taking her down there." Matt raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly.

"You finally taking her on a date?" Kenny just rolled his eyes and flipped him off as he headed down to the lobby, Nick and Matt's laughter fading behind him.

Ash was waiting in the middle of the lobby, practically vibrating with excitement where she stood. Kenny motioned for her to follow him as he headed towards the back of the room.   
He opened the door on the far left and they entered a hallway, a couple doors lining the right wall. They walked past all of them, towards the door at the very end of the hallway that lead outside. When Kenny opened the door and stepped aside to let Ash pass him, he was amused to see the look on the blonde's face as she gawked at the backyard of the base.

It was fairly large, outdoor seats and tables furnishing the deck they walked out onto, just past that was a huge pool, the water sparkling in the sunlight as the light breeze rippled the surface. And past that stood a single shed in the far right corner of the lot, the rest of the yard decorated with an impressive patio with bushes lining it.

"Has this been here the whole time?" Ash asked as Kenny shut the door behind them.

He chuckled. "Yes Ash. It's been here the whole time." She turned and smacked Kenny's arm, causing him to just laugh harder.

"We're coming out here all the time now!" She said. "Why didn't you tell me sooner damnit?!" Kenny just kept laughing, leading the way off the deck and out past the pool. He made a beeline for the shed, amused at the confused look Ash gave him as he reached for the door.

"Why are we going in here?" Kenny opened the door and motioned for her to step inside. He followed her inside, and they headed down the spiral staircase that had been hidden inside.

At the bottom of the staircase was the gun range, hidden from prying eyes and sound proof as to not alert their neighbors to what was really going on. The entire room was made of concrete, the left and right walls leading up to the shooting booths completely covered in every type of gun and weapon one could imagine, from bow and arrows to pistols, rifles, and submachine guns, the lower walls lined with drawers that held practice ammo. Out past the shooting booths in the actual firing range, paper targets were hung from the ceiling and standing mannequin targets were pushed up against the wall and out of the way.

He let Ash take it all in as he walked over to the pistols, pulling one from the wall and grabbing a box of practice ammo from the drawer underneath it. He placed them both at one of the booths and grabbed the protective earmuffs from another booth, putting them around the back of his neck. He pressed one of the buttons on the side of the booth and a hanging target with the figure of a person on it was mechanically moved into the middle of the firing range.

He turned to look back at Ash, who was still looking around.

"You done looking around yet?" He asked, pulling Ash's attention away from one of the bigger guns hung on the wall. She nodded and walked over to the shooting booth. Kenny handed her the pair of protective earmuffs from the booth they were at, waiting until Ash slipped them over her ears before stepping aside and motioning for her to pick up the pistol. He slipped his own ear muffs over his ears as Ash grabbed the pistol. 

There was no hesitation in the way Ash loaded the gun with a practice round, doing it like it was something she's done thousands of times before.

She raised the gun and aimed, pausing for a second before shooting. She hit the head of the figure on the target, just missing the bullseye in the middle of the forehead. The both of them slipped their ear muffs off and Kenny stepped forward to get a better look.

"Nice shot." He commented. "Where were you aiming for though?"

"Just the head in general." Ash said. "I've always found it easier to think of it as a bigger target than focusing on the bullseye." Kenny nodded stepping back again.

"Try aiming for the bullseye this time." He said. "I honestly think you're a good enough shot to be precise with your shots." Ash nodded and they covered their ears again. 

She loaded the gun again and took aim. This time around, Kenny watched her stance and hold on the gun, which was near textbook perfect. When she pulled the trigger, the shot hit just outside of the bullseye. Kenny stepped forward and pressed a button on the side of the booth, bringing the target over to them as Ash set the gun down on the booth. 

Kenny covered the holes the bullets had made with small pieces of orange masking tape before sending the target back out to the middle of the range.

"Try again." He said, staying beside Ash as she loaded the gun. She lifted her arms to take aim and Kenny stepped up right behind her so that his front was pretty much pressed against her back.

"Relax your shoulders." He said, reaching out to touch her arms. "And don't lock your elbows." She followed his instruction and relaxed her arms. "Tighten your grip on the gun a bit." When Ash did that, Kenny rested his hands on her shoulders. "Relax."

Ash took a deep breath and her shoulders fell under Kenny's touch.

"Shoot."

Ash pulled the trigger and, this time, her aim was perfect, straight through the middle of the bullseye.

She laughed, yanking her ear muffs off before she pressed the button to bring the target towards them. Kenny smiled, finding Ash's excitement endearing. Ash placed the gun down and leaned over to look at the target.

"That's probably the most dead on I've ever been." She said, turning to look at Kenny with a bright smile.

"You're a more accurate shot than most of us." Kenny commented, smiling back at her before pausing. "I have a question to ask."

"Fire away!" Ash said, smirking at the pun. Kenny just rolled his eyes.

"Was the other day the first time you killed someone?" The blonde's smile fell and Kenny almost regretted asking the question.

"Uh, yeah." She said, nodding as she turned her body to face him. "My dad would take me out into the country and we would go hunting in the woods. All I ever killed before was some deer and occasionally a rabbit."

"Are you really okay with what happened?" He asked, just needing to be sure, and Ash nodded in response. 

"I'm really fine with it." She said, Kenny pursing his lips.

"How is that possible?" He mumbled under his breath.

Everyone in the gang had had some issues in the beginning with killing people. It took a toll on all of them in the beginning until they just got used to it. Hell, Dean had the worst time adjusting to killing people because of the soft omegan nature.

And then there was Ash, absolutely not phased in the slightest.

"It was a rush." She said, shrugging. "Just like, the rush of power, knowing that that guy died because of me… It was exciting." Kenny nodded and Ash glanced up at him, frowning. "Is that weird?"

The alpha didn't answer. The truth was that yeah, it was weird. Ash got a rush from killing someone for the first time. It had serial killer tendencies written all over it.

His silence was enough of an answer for Ash though, and she looked away and Kenny could practically feel the shame rolling off of her. He couldn't have that.

"Ash." He said softly as he reached out and touched her face, gently turning her face so their eyes met. "Hey, it may be a bit weird, but that doesn't change who you are." Ash quirked an eyebrow, still frowning.

"And who do you think I am?" Kenny sighed before smiling softly, letting his hand drop from Ash's face.

"You're a tough as shit, sassy omega who won't take anyone's bullshit." He said. He paused and when he saw her smile growing again, he continued. "You're sweet, affectionate, and exciting. And you're one of my favorite people to be around." Ash's smile was almost blinding at that point.

Kenny was caught off guard when Ash moved forward, standing on her tiptoes, and pressed a kiss to Kenny’s cheek, just close enough to his mouth that the very corners of their lips brushed before she pulled away again. He was left speechless as Ash smiled up at him, then turned away and pressed the button on the side of the booth to make the target head back out into the firing range.

"Go grab a gun." She said, starting to load her own pistol with another practice round. "I'd like to see you in action too, you know."

Kenny smiled and slipped his ear muffs over his ears before heading over to the gun wall, grabbing another box of practice rounds and a pistol for himself. He made his way over to the booth on Ash's left and they exchanged smiles before they both started shooting.

××××××

Kenny and Ash had been shooting for just about an hour when they were interrupted by Cody, who started flicking the lights on and off obnoxiously to get their attention.

"Randy's here." That was all he said before heading back up the stairs and Kenny sighed, knowing they have to head inside. He took off his ear muffs and motioned for Ash to do the same.

"We'll have to come back later." He said. "My hacker's here to take a look at the security and cameras for Maxwell's base." The omega nodded and they put the weapons and equipment away before heading back up the stairs and into the yard.

They made their way to the lounge and Ash went over to Dean and Roman while Kenny headed into the meeting room. Randy was already set up at the table, a couple laptops open in front of him and the blueprints to the building spread out in front of him. He looked up and nodded at Kenny.

"Hey man."

"Hey Randy." He said, walking towards the hacker to glance at his set up. "How's it going?"

"Pretty well actually." Randy said. "The security system's pretty basic, I'll be able to keep it shut down for a while so we can get in unnoticed. And depending on how you look at it, it could either be a good or a bad thing that there are cameras spread out throughout every damn part of the building. It'll make it easier for us to keep an eye out on where to avoid while we're in there, but then again, not even a flea could get into the building without a camera seeing it."

"We'll have to figure out a way to disable their monitoring system without shutting down our visuals then." Kenny concluded and Randy nodded.

"Pretty much, yeah." He said. "It shouldn't be too hard to do though."

"Good." Kenny said, heading back towards the door. "I'll just leave you to it then." Randy held a thumbs up in answer and Kenny left the room.

There wasn't much for him to do. He had Darby and Finn getting more ammo, Randy working on security systems, and they didn't have another meeting with Becky, Alexa, and Royce for another couple days, so he had some time to relax a bit.

He headed over to the couch, sitting down next to Ash and resting his arm on the back of the couch behind him. The omega smiled at him as he did and settled into Kenny's side, reaching up to take his arm and letting it rest around her shoulders.

From the other side of the couch, Roman gave Kenny a smug look and he just mouthed at him to shut up.


	8. Chapter 8

Ash had woken up a little sore and very tired but she couldn't get back to sleep so she just given up and headed downstairs to make breakfast.

She was the only one down there when she arrived and as she made herself breakfast, some of the others had begun to trickle into the lounge. Darby had told her good morning before heading into the medical room, Britt and Seth had both grabbed a bowl of cereal before sitting in front of the TV and turning on a morning talk show. Adam and Randy had walked out of the meeting room looking half dead on their feet as they made a beeline for the coffee pot.

Ash ate her food quietly at the kitchen island, watching the talk show from afar and glancing back at the stairs every once and awhile, keeping an eye out for Kenny. Over the past two days since Kenny had shown her the gun range, they gone there every day and Ash was slowly working her way back up to bigger guns. It's been awhile since she went hunting with her dad, ever since she presented as an omega, actually, and it was a great feeling to get back into it.

Cody walked down the stairs and made his way to the fridge. He opened the door and paused, sniffing at the air.

"What's that smell?" He muttered quietly, just barely audible enough to for Ash to hear.

"I just cooked." Ash said. "Maybe it's that?" Cody shook his head.

"No." He said, closing the fridge door, continuing to sniff at the air. "It doesn't smell like food…" He walked closer to Ash, stopping just behind her and practically pressing his nose to the blonde's hair.

"What are you doing?" Ash asked, moving away from Cody and turning to look at him. Her eyebrows were furrowed and his eyes were narrowed at Ash.

"You smell different." Cody said, crossing his arms and Ash scoffed, taking offense.

"Shut the fuck up, I haven't showered yet."

"That's not what I meant." Cody said. He stood silent for a few seconds. "Is your heat coming up?" She froze, counting the days in her head. Her heats were regular, every three months, and the last time she had one was almost two months before she'd been traded to Maxwell. She was at Maxwell's for about two weeks when Kenny and the gang had gotten her out of there. She's been at the base for about two weeks, maybe three…?

Across the room, Kenny stepped foot into the lounge and stopped in his tracks at the base of the stairs. He inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes as he let the heavenly smell permeate his nostrils. When he opened his eyes, his pupils were dilated and his mind was practically gone.

"Kenny..." Ash looked up when Cody spoke, looking over towards the stairs just in time to see Kenny sprint towards her.

Everything happened fast.

The lounge erupted into chaos as Cody quickly pushed Ash behind him, stepping in between her and Kenny. Kenny jumped over the kitchen island and tried to shove Cody out of the way to get to her, only for Cody to grab his shoulders and stop him in his tracks. Kenny growled as his feet landed on the ground and Cody braced himself against Kenny, using his weight to keep him from getting closer to Ash.

"Snap out of it damnit!" He shouted, only to get a growl in return. Kenny started fighting back, throwing punches and swipes, a few connecting. Britt and Seth, who jumped into action as soon as Kenny had started sprinting, grabbed him from behind, pulling him off of Cody. His growls increased in volume as they dragged him towards the stairs.

"Fuck!" Cody swore, inspecting the scratches on his arms that Kenny had made. "I fucking knew that would happen." He looked over to Ash. "You okay?" She was quiet but nodded, staring wide eyed at the stairs, where Kenny had just been dragged off to. 

Cody huffed and turned towards Adam and Randy, who had been watching from the far side of the room. "Adam, go send an alert to everyone's phones and tell them to get down here, Randy, call Becky and tell her we'll need Alexa over here for a few days." The two betas immediately followed orders as the door to the medical room opened and Darby stepped out.

"What the fuck was that?" He asked before his eyes widened as he saw Cody's arms. "What the fuck happened?" He walked over to Cody and started looking at the scratches.

"Kenny's rut got triggered." He said. Darby pursed his lips.

"C'mon, let's clean these up." Cody nodded before turning to Ash.

"Follow us." She nodded and the three of them headed into the medical room. Darby pointed at a chair and Cody sat down in it while Ash sat in a chair on the other side of the room. It was quiet for a bit as Darby moved around to grab the supplies he needed. He folded a pouch and it audibly cracked before he handed it over to Cody. 

"Hold that to your cheek." He said. "Your face is starting to bruise." Cody did as he was told and sighed before looking over at Ash. 

"You really okay?" He asked and she nodded.

"Yeah, just… What was that?!" He let out a dry chuckle.

"That was Kenny's rut." He said. "In case you couldn't tell, the fucker's attracted to you, and the scent of your heat starting up affected him more because of it and it triggered his rut."

Ash was quiet for a minute, taking in the information.

"What's going to happen now?" Darby walked back over to Cody and started wiping the scratches on one of his arms.

"Kenny's going to get locked in his apartment." He said. "And a couple people will guard his door so he doesn't get out." He inhaled deeply, thinking for a second. "With how strong your scent is right now, I'd say you've got about a day before your heat starts. When that happens Dean and Alexa will stay with you in your apartment to make sure you're okay and two bonded alphas will guard your door."

"What about Kenny though?"

"I'll send someone to his apartment every few hours to make sure he's alright." Ash nodded and it was quiet the rest of the time Darby cleaned up Cody's arms. Finally, he tossed the dirtied gauze in the trash and moved to the sink to wash his hands.

"You're all done." He said. "I'll head to the meeting room in a bit." Cody nodded and he and Ash left the room and walked into the meeting room.

Most of the gang was already there, most still dressed in pajamas and a couple of them resting their heads on the table in front of them. As Ash and Cody walked further into the room, Finn lifted his head from the table and sniffed at the air before groaning.

"What is that?" Cody hit him on the back of the head as he walked past. "Ow! What the fuck man?"

"You must not get laid much if you can't recognize that." Cody said, only succeeding in making Finn confused. He rolled his eyes. "That's the smell of an omega nearing heat, dumbass."

Finn's eyes widened and he looked over at Ash, putting the pieces together in his head, before grimacing.

"Sorry." Ash nodded, starting to back out of the room, self conscious about who else could smell her. She was just about to back out of the door when she ran into someone. She turned around and found Alexa standing in the doorway.

"Oh, sorry." Alexa said, stepping aside to let Ash leave the room. She stepped to the side of the door, just outside the room, and leaned against the wall. If Alexa noticed her scent, she was glad she didn't mention anything. 

Darby walked out of the medical room and gave her a smile small before heading into the meeting room.

"Good, we're all here." Cody said and Ash heard him clap his hands. "Listen up because I only wanna explain this once. Plans have changed slightly for the next couple days since Kenny's rut got triggered." He paused. "So, until he's got a clear head and his dick stops getting hard from just a stiff breeze, I'm in charge. Not only that, but Ash's heat's coming up, I believe in the next twenty four hours, so I'm going to assign some of you to guard apartments. Britt and Roman, you two will stand at Ash's door since you two are bonded and her heat won't affect you. Seth and Finn, you'll guard Kenny's door. Make sure he doesn't get out. Dean and Alexa, you two will stay in Ash's apartment to make sure she's taken care of and Nick, you'll check on Kenny every once and awhile to make sure he doesn't starve to death because he can't stop getting off. Don't stay in there too long, you know that he can get aggressive. Everyone else, you'll work with me to keep working on the plan for the raid on Maxwell's base. I don't want us to get behind just because of this small hiccup, alright?"

Ash heard the collective sound of everyone's agreement. "Good, now I'm done talking, scram."

She closed her eyes as she heard chairs scrape against the floor and people leave the meeting room. She could practically feel her face burning from embarrassment and she sighed, reaching up to rub her eyes. They were burning from how tired she was and now knew why she woke up so sore and tired, her body was fucking preparing for heat.

When she pulled her hands away from her eyes, Alexa and Dean were standing in front of her, their alphas not far behind them.

"You alright?" Dean asked and Ash nodded.

"I'm fine." She said and sighed again. "I'm just tired and..." Ash waved her hands around as if that would convey what she wanted to say since her mind wasn’t providing the word she was looking for.

"Embarrassed?"

Ash pointed at Alexa when she spoke, "Yeah."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of." Alexa said. "It's normal." Ash groaned.

"Yeah, I know that but just-" She groaned again and covered her face with her hands.

"Cody didn't tell you about how open we are about our cycles around here, did he?" Roman came up and asked and Ash shook her head, letting her hands fall back to her side. Roman pursed his lips. "He should've talked to you about that before telling us what was going on." Ash waved her hand.

"Can't do much about it now." She sighed before turning to Alexa and Dean. "You know you don't have to stay in my apartment during, right? I've gone through plenty of heats alone and haven't died yet." Dean and Alexa both chuckled.

"It's okay." Alexa said and Dean nodded. "I used to help a couple of my friends back in Ohio anyways, it's normal for omegas to do this for friends." Ash smiled.

"Thanks guys." Dean moved forward and wrapped an arm around Ash's shoulder.

"No problem." He said softly, smiling, "How about we head to your apartment now and get away from everyone for a while?" Ash smiled back.

"That'd be great."

The three omegas, Britt, and Roman all headed for the stairs, Ash keeping her gaze on the floor because she didn't want to see if anyone was staring at her or not.

When they reached her floor, it was like they hit a wall, the blonde completely blindsided by the strong smell of an alpha in rut. Her knees nearly buckled beneath her as her body reacted to it and Alexa and Dean quickly caught her before she fell to the ground.

"What the fuck?" She groaned as she was led over to her apartment door. She handed the keys over to Roman to unlock the door.

"You know?" Britt said. "For two unbonded people, you two are really affected by each other's cycles." Ash just flipped her off as the three omegas walked into the apartment, Alexa taking the keys from Roman and locking the door behind them. Dean helped Ash over to the couch.

"You alright?" He asked again and she nodded.

"I'm good." She said. "That's never happened to me when I've been around an alpha in rut before..." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"You've been around an alpha in rut..." He said, like he was trying to process the sentence. "Was you like, helping them out or…?" Ash quickly shook her head.

"No, no." She said. "Nothing like that. Mostly just me being nearby when my friend Rhea's rut started and getting the fuck out of there before she jumped her mate." Alexa snorted as she walked over to them, handing Ash a bottle of water she found in the fridge. The blonde took it and held it to her forehead, sighing at the coolness.

"Cody might be a bit off about when it's starting up." She said. "Feels like it's gonna hit in the next couple hours."

"Seems like it." Dean said grimacing. A thought occurred to Ash and she let out a dry laugh.

"I'm just glad it didn't happen when I was being held by Maxwell."

"Shit." Alexa swore. "I completely forgot about that." That was the one condition that had to be met in order for an alpha and omega to bond, the omega had to be in heat, some stupid quirk in their biology that evolution failed to get rid of.

"Well..." Dean sighed. "At least it's happening here where you're safe."

"Thank fuck for that." Ash held up her water bottle up in a mock toast before pressing it back to her forehead.

"What should we do in the meantime?" Alexa asked and Ash pursed her lips looking around her apartment. Her eyes fell on the DVDs she'd just finished putting away in the shelf of the TV stand.

"I've got some movies we could watch." She suggested, pointing towards the TV with her free hand. Alexa walked over to the shelf and squatted down to look at what DVDs Ash had.

"Got any preferences on what you want to watch?"

"Nah." Ash said. "I like all of them, I wouldn't have bought them if I didn't."

"Fair enough."

"Hey." Dean spoke up. "Why don't you and I set up your bedroom so you're not rushing to when your heat hits?" Ash nodded.

"That'd be a smart move." She set her water bottle on the side table next to the couch and she and Dean headed towards her bedroom. The first thing they did was strip the bed of the nice sheets, replacing them with some older ones Ash found in the hallway closet. Dean pulled a box fan he found in there out as well and set it up so that it was pointed at the bed. The last thing either of them could think to do was to bring water bottles into the room so that Ash wouldn't get dehydrated during heat. They both brought in a few and set them on the side table before they headed back out to the living room, where Alexa was just closing the DVD player.

"I picked Jurassic World." She said when she noticed they returned to the room. "Hope you guys don't mind."

"Of course not." Ash said, sitting back down and picking up her water bottle. "How could I ever mind watching anything with Chris Pratt in it?" The three of them laughed, none of them denying it at all as they settled down in seats around the room to watch the movie.

××××××

It was just after dinner when Ash's heat hit her. She'd managed to get in a quick power nap after she eaten, only to be woken up by her body feeling like it was on fire. She groaned, sitting up from where she's been laying on the couch and leaning over, resting her head in her hands, practically panting already. She could feel the heat fog start to settle in her mind and she let out a little whine, knowing that it was only a matter of time before she completely lost it.

"Heat starting?" Alexa guessed and Ash nodded. Dean stood up from his seat and walked over to the door, opening it just a crack. Ash could just barely make out that he was telling the alphas outside that her heat had started over the fog slowly permeating her brain.

"Go on and head to your room." Alexa said. "If you need anything just let us know." Ash nodded, glancing up at her.

"Thank you." She said and Alexa nodded.

"No problem." Ash groaned as the first wave of heat hit her and she quickly stood up from the couch and stumbled to her room, closing the door behind her. She clumsily made her way over to the bed, shedding her clothes on the way there. The cool breeze felt like a god send, helping cool her skin. Unfortunately it did nothing for her internally, where she felt like she was burning up from the inside out.

When she reached the bed, she reached for her bedside table, fumbling around in the drawer until she found the knotted dildo she had bought her second day at the base. At the time she knew she'll eventually need it, time just got away from her.

She sat down on the bed and took a deep breath, fighting the fog clouding her mind for just a little longer. Her mouth already felt dry, like this heat was burning away all the water she had in her body, and she uncapped a bottle of water, drinking it down as quickly as she could.

Just finished the last mouth full when she couldn't hold on any longer and she let the fog loose, letting herself go.


	9. Chapter 9

When Kenny woke up, he was relieved to find that his rut had finished. He reached over to his bedside table and grabbed his phone, turning on the screen and seeing that three days had passed since it began. He turned the screen off again and flopped back down on his bed, running his hand over his face and groaning.

His rut had completely blindsided him. Since he presented, his rut had always been pretty regular and he hadn't been expecting it for another month. All he knew was that as soon as he had stepped foot into the lounge three days ago, that heavenly smell had wafted towards him and he was just done for. After that, everything was a blur, the only thing he remembered was growling at Nick whenever he'd come to check on him.

He sighed, deciding he needed to get out of bed. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, heading straight for his en suite. After he showered the grime from the last three days away and had gotten dressed, an anime shirt and blue ripped jeans, he stripped his bed and made a mental note to put fresh sheets on later before heading for the apartment door. 

"Nuh uh." Finn said from the other side of the door when Kenny started to open it. "Get back in there." It stopped abruptly as Seth reached out to grab the door. Kenny sighed as Finn walked over to look at him through the door.

"Rut's over guys." He said, he would be wondering why they were guarding his door if he didn't know Ash's apartment was the floor below his. He appreciated that they were making sure that she was kept safe, even from Kenny himself.

Finn narrowed his eyes, looking Kenny over for a second before nodding. "Let him out.” Seth let the door go and Kenny opened it enough to step outside into the hallway. "We'll have to walk you past Ash's apartment if you wanna head down to the lounge." Kenny furrowed his eyebrows.

"Why…?"

"You went batshit crazy." Seth said. "Literally jumped over the kitchen island just to try and get to her." Kenny's eyes widened in horror.

"Fuck."

"Don't worry." Finn said. "Nothing actually happened. Cody got in between you and Ash and then you got dragged up here." Kenny let out a sigh of relief and nodded.

"Good." He sighed. "My rut's finished though, why do you still need to walk me past her apartment?"

"You'll see."

The three of them headed down the stairs and Kenny immediately knew what Finn was talking about. As soon as he got to the bottom of the stairs and reached Ash's floor, he paused. The air was completely saturated in the scent of an omega in heat and he suddenly understood why he had gone into rut earlier than he expected.

"Whoa..." Finn rolled his eyes, grabbing his arm.

"Yeah yeah whatever." He said, dragging Kenny down the hallway, nodding at Britt and Roman, who were standing guard outside Ash's door. Kenny let out an involuntary growl at them, jealous that they were so close to Ash while she was in heat, then covered his mouth as he came to his senses. Finn snorted.

"You're absolutely fucked, you know that?" Kenny whacked him on the back of the head with his free hand.

"Fuck off."

When they reached the end of the hallway, Kenny practically raced down the stairs, wanting to get as far away from the scent of Ash's heat as possible. He clearly couldn't control himself and figured it'd be safer to just stay away.

When he reached the lounge, Matt spotted him from across the room at the kitchen island. He grabbed a granola bar and tossed it at Kenny, who caught it.

"Eat up if you wanna grow into a big strong alpha." Matt snickered and Kenny flipped him off as he took a bite of the granola bar. He was fucking starving.

"Where's Cody?" He asked, only it came out more like "whrrs coty?" since his mouth was full of the granola bar. Matt wrinkled his nose.

"You're disgusting." He said, before pointing at the door to the meeting room. Kenny nodded and headed towards the door, pushing it open. Cody and Darby were the only ones in the room, Darby sitting at the table with blueprints in front of him and a metallic silver sharpie in hand, Cody hovering behind him, looking over his shoulder. He looked up at the sound of the door opening.

"Oh good, you've stopped stroking your dick." He said. Kenny flipped him off.

"You do the same thing every three months too." Cody snorted. "That may be true." He said. "But at least my rut isn't triggered by the scent of an omega entering heat like a teenager." 

Kenny frowned, taking another bite of his granola bar, and sat down in the nearest seat. Once he swallowed his mouthful of food, he spoke again.

"About that..." He sighed. "That could be a problem." Cody doesn't look up from the blueprints, pointing to something on the paper and Darby writing something down.

"What are you talking about?"

"My feelings towards Ashley." He fully expected teasing at having finally admitted his feelings for the omega, but that wasn't what he was met with. Cody and Darby both paused what they were doing and Cody leaned over, talking quietly in Darby's ear for a second. 

Kenny could barely make out the words talk and private before Darby nodded. He leaned up and pressed a kiss to Cody's cheek before pushing his chair back, standing up, and walking out of the room, the door shutting behind him. Kenny took another bite of his granola bar as Cody rolled up the blueprints and put them away, then he watched as Cody walked over to the other side of the table and sat down in the chair opposite of him.

"Now, what's the issue?"

"My feelings for Ash." He repeated and Cody ran a hand over his face.

"Yeah okay." He said. "And that's an issue… Why exactly?"

"She's only here for protection." Kenny said. "After Maxwell's dead, she's free to leave." Cody just stared at Kenny.

"Are you a complete dumbass?"

"Wha-" Cody held up his hand.

"No, seriously. You'd have to be a complete dumbass to think that. Do you seriously not see how close Ash has gotten to everyone while she's been here? She and Darby are close, so are Dean, and Alexa. And fucking hell, you and Ash are super close as well. If you really think that once we go out and kill Maxwell that she's just gonna leave without a trace, you're a fucking moron." 

Kenny just stayed quiet.

"Honestly..." Cody said, leaning back in his chair." I think you're just scared." 

Kenny scoffed. "Of what?"

Cody shrugged his shoulder. "I'm not sure." He said. "It could be a number of things. Your feelings for her in general, you've never been in a relationship, I couldn't blame you for being scared if it were that. Maybe you think that she doesn't feel the same way and you're scared of being rejected, which let me tell you right now, that's not fucking true. Maybe you don't think that Ash would want to be with you because of the gang, maybe you're just afraid that she will get hurt because of your position." Kenny winced and Cody paused, having seen his reaction. 

It's quiet for a bit.

"I understand that..." 

Cody sighed. "You, out of everyone, would know that I understand that completely. I can't promise you that that won't happen because let's face it, any of us could fucking die at any time when we go out on raids or go rob a bank or some shit. But look at the others. Britt and her husband are happily bonded, Adam's has a wife, Seth's got a girlfriend, Dean and Roman are one of the most sickeningly adorable couples I've ever seen. Hell, I've even got Darby."

Kenny sighed. "I guess I see your point." Cody nodded. "Damn right you better see my point." He said, before taking a deep breath. "Just don't fucking wait around." Kenny noticed that his tone had turned bitter.

"Cody..." He said quietly. "If this is about-"

"Don't you fucking dare."

"I miss Brandi too Cody." 

Cody pursed his lips and Kenny took that as his cue to leave him on his own. He pushed his chair back and stood up, heading for the door.

"Kenny?"

He turned around and Cody had his forearms on the table, his head hung, "Don't wait. If you do, you might regret it someday."

Kenny nodded and left the room.


	10. Chapter 10

Ash was left sore and tired as the last of her heat dissipated. She didn't even want to fucking move from her spot in the middle of the bed, despite how gross the sheets had become in the last three days.

She didn't know how long she'd been lucid for when the door to her room opened and Alexa peaked around the corner.

"How're you doing?"

"It's gone." She grumbled. Alexa walked into the room, holding a plate of food and moved to set it down on the bed next to Ash.

"You think you'll be alright on your own then?" Ash nodded.

"Thank you." She said, turning her head to look at the other omega. "And let Dean know I appreciate his help too."

"It's no trouble." She headed for the door. "We'll be leaving then." The blonde nodded as Alexa left the room.

"I'll talk to you guys later!" She called out before she heard the door shut as they left her apartment. She groaned as she turned over, grimacing as the sheets stuck to her. She wanted nothing more than to go to sleep but she felt disgusting. She ate the food that Alexa had brought her and once she was done with that, she set the plate on the bedside table before gingerly getting up from the bed. She stretched out, hearing her joints pop and letting her stiff muscles loosen up a bit. She then turned around and stripped the bed of the covers, wrinkling her nose at the state of them.

She debated just tossing them out but one, they weren't hers, and two, who knew how long she'd be staying at the base, she could need them again. She just tossed them into the corner of her room and headed for the hallway closet, grabbing some clean sheets and making the bed.

After she finished that, she headed for the bathroom, starting up the water and sitting in the tub as she let the water warm up, plugging the tub when it reached the perfect temperature.

Once the tub was full and turned off the water, she let herself really relax for the first time in three days. Her heat was always a blur to her, only ever remembering the very beginning and the bits in between getting off when the heat would subside for a bit. She eventually had to force herself to sit up and wash off, scrubbing her skin clean and washing her hair out before rinsing off and draining the tub.

Ash wrapped herself up in the fluffiest towel she could find and shuffled back over to the bed, not even caring that she was still kind of wet before flopping face first on top of the covers and promptly falling asleep.

By the time Ash woke up, she felt a lot better, not as tired as she'd been before but just as sore. She turned over and looked toward the window, finding that it was dark outside. She figured that since it was already late she should head down to the lounge and eat something, so she stood up from the bed and dug around in her dresser for her Slayer shirt and red and black checkered pajama pants, pulling them on and heading for the door.

When she was outside, she tried to be as quiet as she could, knowing that everyone else would be asleep and she didn't want to wake anyone up.

Turned out that not everyone was asleep, because when she got to the lounge, Kenny was leaning on the kitchen island, the blueprints spread out in front of him.

Ash cleared her throat and Kenny jumped, looking up at her.

"Hi." He said, smiling shyly at her and Ash smiled back.

Why was Kenny acting shy towards her?

She walked over to the fridge, opening it and finding a plastic bag with some leftover pizza from, if her memory was serving her right, a couple nights ago. She put it on a plate and popped it in the microwave and stood in front of it while it heated up, aware of Kenny's eyes on her.

Once the pizza was warmed up she walked over to the kitchen island and stood next to Kenny, who rolled up the blueprints and shoved them over to the side.

"How you doing?" Ash asked him, turning towards Kenny as she let her food cool down.

"I'm doing good." Kenny said. "Um, sorry about the other day and trying to... Um..."

"I get it." She said, laughing. "And it's fine, I get that it was your rut. Cody explained it to me." Kenny paled at that before he cleared his throat and reached behind his neck.

"Good, um... You doing alright?"

"I'm doing okay." She said. "I'm a bit sore but I'm always like that after heat." She turned towards her food, picking up the piece and taking a bite out of it. Once she swallowed she let out a dry laugh. "I'm just glad my heat hit here and not while Maxwell had me."

Kenny clearly knew exactly what that would've meant for her, because he growled before covering his mouth. Ash looked over at him, eyebrow raised.

"What is up with you?" Kenny let his hand fall and sighed. "We need to talk." She laugh out a chuckle. "That sounds like you're breaking up with me." Kenny's clearly not amused and her smile faded. "Sorry, continue on."

"Cody explained why my rut started up so abruptly, right?" Ash nodded. "Like, exactly why?" She nodded again, smiling.

"Yeah, he said that it was because you're attracted to me."

"Yeah." Kenny said, then took a deep breath. "The thing is, it's not just attraction at this point..." He paused, watching her reaction and she nodded, waiting for Kenny to continue. "I really like you, could even be in love with you. Honestly if I'm not already, it's only a matter of time, because everything about you just makes me fall even more." Kenny's not expecting for Ash to reach out to take his hand.

"That's good." She said. "Because the feelings definitely mutual." Kenny lets out a sigh of relief and smiles before he leaned forward and kisses her.

She closed her eyes and sighed into the kiss, shifting so that they're closer. Kenny's hands resting at Ash's waist and Ash's arms moving to wrap behind Kenny's neck. The kiss was everything he could've imagined and more, sweet and brief but still full of what they felt for each other.

Ash pulled away first, their eyes blinking open briefly before she pressed another quick kiss to Kenny's lips, laughing as she pulled away again.

"You have no idea how incredibly happy I am right now." Kenny smiled, wrapping his arms around Ash's back and hugging her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"I think I have an idea." And really he's happy...

But...

His head was screaming at him that it was dangerous for Ash, especially right now with Maxwell still out there. Kenny pulled away from the hug and Ash's smile faded when she saw the serious look on Kenny's face.

"What's wrong?" He let Ash go, leaning against the kitchen island.

"I need you to know that everything I said was true and I want to be with you, god I want to be with you so badly." Ash was frowning now. "I sense a _but_ coming..." He smiled sadly, nodding. "It's not the right time to do this." He said. "With the attack on Maxwell being planned and him still looking for you, it's dangerous for you to even be associated with me. I'm also afraid that something would happen to you if anyone found out that we were together." She stepped closer to Kenny.

"I can take care of myself." She said. "I can be just as dangerous as any of the gang if I want to be." Kenny took a deep breath in.

"I just don't want you to get hurt."

"I know the danger of what I'm getting myself into." She said, reaching down to take Kenny's hand, Kenny intertwining their fingers. "I still want to try, this is worth it." He was quiet for a second before he nodded.

"Yeah." He said. "We could be worth it." Her smile was blinding as she practically jumped at Kenny, who caught her, and she wrapped her arms around Kenny's neck and her legs around his waist. Kenny laughed at Ash's excitement before his laugh was cut off by a kiss.

They ended up moving to the couch, spending the rest of the night talking about what would happen next. Kenny didn't want to jump right into a relationship with Maxwell still hunting for Ash and the two of them compromised, agreeing to be cautious while Ash was still being targeted and not putting a label on what they were. Once Maxwell was dead and it was over, they'd be properly together.

They ended up falling asleep on the couch, Ash lying on her from Kenny, her face tucked into the crook of his neck while Kenny's arms were wrapped around her, face turned towards the omega's hair.

And if a couple gang members took a couple pictures of them the next morning before they woke, they didn't need to know that.


	11. Chapter 11

Ash was happy.

Really, she was. It was just…

"Not now, Ash." Kenny said, walking past her on his way to the meeting room. She pouted and turned around, watching Kenny walk into the meeting room and shut the door.

Even though she and Kenny had sorted their shit out a week ago, it seemed like he was trying to distance himself from Ash. Every time Ash went in for a kiss or tried to hug the alpha, Kenny ducked out of the way or made excuses.

She understood the need to be careful out in public, they didn't know who could be watching them and they didn't want Maxwell getting word that she and Kenny were anything more than acquaintances. That didn't mean that they couldn't kiss or hug every once and awhile with others in the gang around.

The attack on Maxwell's base really couldn't come soon enough for Ash. 

She sighed and turned around, walking towards the stairs to head up to her apartment. She noticed Roman looking at her from the kitchen and she just nodded at him and headed up the stairs. She could hear Randy from behind her as he arrived. "What's up bitches?!"

The others had definitely noticed a change in Ash's mood. Dean kept asking if she was alright and Ash always said she was. Darby shot her worried looks if she was around when Kenny turned her away and Ash just shot him a quick smile to let him know she was fine.

And then there was Cody's way of checking up on her. 

She reached her apartment and was digging around in her pocket for her keys when a hand went over her mouth and she screamed, muffled. 

Whoever was behind her dragged her backwards and into Cody's apartment, shoving her inside as they closed the door. She steadied herself and was ready to shout for help, maybe punch the person in the face, but she was just met with Cody turning back towards her.

"What the fuck Cody?!"

"I was just about to ask you that." He said, motioning towards his sofa.

"Seriously, what the fuck is going on with you and Kenny?" Ash stiffened and Cody rolled his eyes when she didn't move. "Dude, sit down, I just wanna talk to you."

"There's nothing going on with me and Kenny." Ash lied, slowly walking over to Cody's couch. Cody just snorted.

"Okay." He said. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't lie to me. Or at least if you do, do it convincingly." She rolled her eyes at him as she sat down.

"There's seriously nothing going on." She said.

"Then can you explain to me why whenever you lean in towards Kenny and he walks away, you look like a kicked puppy?" Ash pursed her lips and crossed her arms. Cody took a seat in an armchair to the right of the couch. "Both of you seem like you're miserable, I just wanna figure out why." Ash sighed, finding it oddly comforting that the distance Kenny was keeping between them wasn't just affecting her.

"After our cycles we talked..." She admitted. "We admitted our feelings and shit and now we're just waiting until the attack on Maxwell's base before we make it official."

'Yeah, Kenny told me that." Cody said. "But that's a good thing…"

"Yeah, except I just wanna kiss him sometimes god damnit." She complained. Cody snorted at that.

"Okay." He said. "And I'm guessing the reason you're so pissy lately is because he keeps turning you away." The blonde scowled.

"I'm not pissy."

"Uh huh." Cody hummed. "Listen I'm gonna tell you something and hopefully it'll explain why Kenny's so cautious about you, okay?" Ash nodded and Cody took a deep breath, running a hand over his face as he leaned forward.

"Okay." He sighed. "Did you know that Kenny and I grew up together?" She shook her head. "Well, we did. We lived next to each other and pretty much from the time we were learning to talk to third grade, we were friends. Then fourth grade, this girl joined our little group." Another deep breath. "Her name was Brandi. When high school came along, Kenny and I presented as alphas and Brandi presented as an omega. Just when we were about to graduate, Kenny went missing for a while."

"Is that when Maxwell…?" Ash asked, trailing off, and Cody nodded.

"Yeah." He said. "Things got even harder when I saw him and he explained to me what was going on. Back then he wasn't able to defend himself all that well, he may have had the alpha strength and all, but he didn't know how to fight or shoot a gun accurately. I wanted to make sure he was safe since he couldn't get himself out of Maxwell's gang, so I joined him. I did what I could to make sure Brandi didn't get involved but she eventually found out." Cody chuckled, smiling softly. "She pretty much decided that we were both idiots who were going to get ourselves killed. We finally managed to get away from Maxwell and we formed our own gang and Brandi joined us before anyone else did." He paused, closing his eyes, taking deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" She asked and he nodded.

"I'm fine." He said. "It's just hard for me to talk about." He sighed again before continuing. "We slowly found members to join and we kept growing in power until we were pretty much the most powerful gang in the city, besides Maxwell's. We knew he had to be taken down, even in the beginning, so we started attacking his warehouses and killing his gang, getting as many details on him as we could so we could at least stand a chance against him. One night we were raiding one of his warehouses and something went wrong towards the end. Some of the gang was loading what we'd come for into a van and Brandi and I were keeping watch. We killed everyone who'd been there so we wasn't prepared for the gunfire. Brandi and I got separated and then I heard her scream…" He swallowed and looked down to the floor.

"Cody..." He just held up his finger to stop the blonde from talking.

"When we found her it was already too late." He said. "The fucking bastard was standing over her, and there was so much blood." Cody huffed. "He escaped and we tried everything but she was already gone."

"Were you and her together?" She asked quietly, starting to see the point of what Cody was telling her. He shook his head.

"I had feelings for her for years but I didn't do anything about it." He said, before shaking his head. "God, that's the one thing I regretted the most, not telling her. She could've denied me for all I know but it's better than not knowing." They were quiet for a moment.

"I'm sorry." Cody just nodded at her words before looking up.

"What I'm trying to say is Kenny doesn't want to go through that with you." He said. "People die a lot in this business and the fact that Kenny's being so careful just means that he cares about you a lot." Ash nodded. "I understand."

"Good." Cody said, smiling softly. "Just be patient, Maxwell McDickhead will be gone soon enough and then you and Kenny can have your happily ever after." Ash rolled her eyes at the teasing as she stood up from the couch.

"Thank you for telling me." She said and Cody nodded, mock saluting her with two fingers as Ash left the apartment.

Ash had wanted to go back to her apartment, but she wanted to do one thing first.

She jogged down the stairs and made her way into the meeting room, glad that Kenny was alone. She knocked quietly on the door and Kenny looked up from the plans in front of him and smiled, rolling up the blueprints and turning over the other papers with details on them.

"Hey." He said as Ash walked towards him. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms around him and Kenny hesitated before hugging her back. "What's this about? You okay?" Ash nodded.

"I'm fine." She said. "Just, I'm sorry for pushing. I get that you're just trying to keep me safe and I'll wait as long as I need to for you to be ready." Kenny smiled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Thank you."


	12. Chapter 12

A week and a half was all the peace they got before shit hit the fan.

The blonde groaned, flopping on her side on the sectional, watching the door to the meeting room. The gang had gone in there an hour ago and Ash had been left to herself while they continued developing the plan to raid Maxwell's base.

And she was bored.

"How long can planning a raid even take?" She grumbled under her breath, turning over onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. "It can't be that complicated can it?"

She pursed her lips and turned her head towards the door again before standing up and walking towards it. She turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

Everything fell silent as she stepped inside, her cheeks heating up as everyone turned to look at her.

"Hey." She said awkwardly. "Um, could I sit in?" Kenny shook his head, leaning over the table to turn the plans over and Ash narrowed her eyes at the action. She'd done that every time she came near the plans. 

"Not right now." Kenny said. "We'll be out in a little bit." She met Kenny's eyes.

"Why not?" She asked. "I'll be quiet and won't distract you guys." Kenny pursed his lips, taking a deep breath.

"We'll talk after the meeting." He responded and left it at that. The blonde huffed, knowing they were waiting for her to leave, and left the room, possibly closing the door a little harder than she meant to.

About fifteen minutes later, the door opened and the gang filed out and Ash waited for Kenny but he didn't leave the room. After a couple minutes of waiting for him, she decided to go into the room herself.

Kenny was collecting papers from the table when she walked in and he quickly hid them all, letting her roll her eyes.

"Why do you keep doing that?" She asked. "Am I not allowed to see the plans or something?"

"There's no need for you to see them." Kenny said. "You won't be involved in the raid anyways." Ash raised her eyebrows.

"Why not? I could help, you know I'm capable."

"Ashley-"

"Is this because I'm an omega?" She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him. "Because Dean and Alexa are both involved and-"

"That's different." Kenny interrupted. "They both have more experience in these situations than you do. You may be good with a gun but can you fight close range?" She frowned.

"Well, no, but-"

"That"s not the only reason either." Kenny said. "You're the one that Maxwell's after. It'll be incredibly dangerous for you to be anywhere near him while he's so set on finding you."

"Well that's even better then." She said. "I could be used as bait th-"

"Absolutely not!" He snapped. "You're not going anywhere near that bastard."

"I'm not some helpless omega who's gonna wait for my alpha in shining armor." She said with an irritated tone in her voice. "I can-" 

"What kind of person do you think I am?" Kenny asked growing more irritated. "You always ask if my actions are because you're an omega and it never is. I'm not that kind of alpha." He takes the papers and puts them into a cardboard box. "After all this is over I'm going to be your alpha, it's my job to keep you safe and I can't do that if you go and throw yourself in harms way like that. It doesn't matter whether you can take care of yourself or how much you can help us. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you’re safe."

 _ **"You’re** **not** **helping** **with** **the**_ **attack."**

Kenny said, slipping into his alpha tone and making Ash flinch.

_**"That's** **final."**_

Ash was left shocked by his words, but more importantly, she was pissed.

How dare Kenny use an alpha command on her like that. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down enough to speak.

"If this is how you're going to treat your omega..." She said tightly. "Then maybe it's not going to be me anymore." She turned around and walked out of the room, holding onto the door before turning around. "Oh, and go fuck yourself." She slammed the door and turned around, seeing the gang staring at her. She growled in warning at them before heading for the sectional and grabbing her hoodie, slipping it on.

"Ash..." Dean walked over to her and she turned around and glared at him, winced and stepping back at her reaction.

"Tell Kenny I'm not coming back." She mumbled, turning around and heading for the stairs, leaving the building and not looking back.

××××××

Things were tensely quiet after that.

No one knew why Kenny and Ash had fought or what it was about. Kenny hadn't come out of the meeting room since Ash stormed out and no one could get a hold of Ash. Especially when it was found out that she left her phone in her apartment.

A few hours after she left, Kenny finally emerged from the meeting room, ignoring everyone and heading up to his apartment.

He regretted commanding her almost immediately after he had done it. An alpha doesn't just command omegas or betas left and right, it's only ever socially accepted when they're mated or have at least been in a relationship for a long time. And he just commanded her before they were even together.

But, god damnit, the omega was stubborn. Kenny was just trying to keep her safe, that's all he wanted.

He walked past Ash's apartment door, fully expected to at least smell her there, but he can't. He stopped, sniffing at the air. Her scent smelled hours old. He furrowed his eyebrows and reached over, opening the door and stepping inside. It was dark and cold, like no one had been there all day.

It was clear that she wasn't there.

He left the apartment and headed back downstairs, stopping in the lounge when everyone fell silent.

"Where’s Ashley?" His question was only met with silence and it frustrated him but he was growing more and more worried. "Where is she?"

"She left." Nick sighed finally. "Said she wasn't coming back." Kenny tensed, staring at Nick.

"She left?" The gang nodded. "But- she- where did she go?!"

"We don't know." Dean sighed. "She was pissed, she wouldn't talk to us except to tell us that." Kenny's breathing picked up as a thousand scenarios ran through his head. Ash shouldn't be out in the city alone, Maxwell's men was everywhere!

"How long ago did she leave?" He asked. "If it wasn't that long ago then we can go look for-"

"It was hours ago Kenny." Nick said. "She's long gone by now." Kenny gulped, stepping back. If she's been gone for hours, then who knows where she was or what had happened to her. Fuck, he'd fucked up.

He fucked up so bad.

××××××

Ash shivered as she walked up the stairs, stopping just in front of the door and pressing the buzzer to let Rhea know she was there. She left the base three hours ago, walking the whole way to the other side of the city where Rhea lived. Halfway there, the temperature had dropped and it started raining and Ash was completely soaked to the bone now.

_"Hello?"_

"R-Rhea?" Ash stammered, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. "It's Ash."

 _"Ash what the fuck?!"_ The buzzer went dead and Ash furrowed her eyebrows, reaching over and pressing it again.

"Rhea?" It wasn't long before the door was being pulled open and Ash found herself enveloped in the comfort of her best friend's arms.

"Dude, what the fuck are you doing out there?" Rhea asked. "Are you nuts?"

"I h-had to-o get-t awa-ay." Rhea growled, holding Ash tighter to her.

"What did they do to you?" She asked. "I swear to god if they hurt you-"

"Rhea..." The alpha calmed down a bit and took in Ash's condition. Her clothes were soaked and she was cold to the touch, shivering violently. Rhea sighed.

"Come on." Rhea said softly. "Let's get you dry and warmed up." She led Ash up to the second floor and she opened the door to her apartment, leading Ash towards her bedroom, letting go of her for a moment to search around in her drawers for dry clothes. She grabbed a plain red t-shirt and some black sweatpants and handed them over to Ash. "Here, get changed then head out to the living room, okay?" 

Ash nodded and waited until Rhea left before peeling her wet clothes off of her body, letting them fall to the floor with a wet plop. She changed as quickly as she could with how badly she was shaking before heading out to the living room. She sat down on the couch and grabbed the blanket that was draped over the back of it, wrapping it around her shoulders and crossing her legs underneath her. She heard Rhea tinkering around in the kitchen and the ding of the microwave and a couple minutes later, Rhea was walking over to her with a steaming cup in her hands.

"It's hot chocolate." She said. "Thought it'll help warm you up." Ash smiled thankfully, taking the cup and just holding it, letting her hands warm up again. Rhea sat in the chair next to the couch and leaned forward.

"So..." She sighed. "You wanna explain to me why you're here?" Ash sighed.

"You know that guy you talked to on the phone when I called you?" Rhea nodded. "That was Omega." Rhea's eyes widened almost comically.

"Omega?!" She practically screeched. "What the fuck Ash, what is it with you and gang leaders?"

Ash chuckled. "He got me away from Maxwell and offered me a place to stay." She said.

"He didn't hurt you did he?" She shook her head.

"No..." She said immediately. "He's actually really sweet." The smile that been growing on her face fell as she remembered the day's events.

"What happened then?" Rhea asked. "Why'd you leave?" Ash let out a dry chuckle.

"I somehow managed to fall in love with him." Ash said. "And he felt the same for me." She sighed, growing irritated as she remembered why she left. "And then he fucking used an alpha command on me and told me I couldn't help with the raid on Maxwell's base." She scolded and it was a few seconds before Rhea snorted.

"Holy fuck, Ash, you're an idiot." Ash scoffed at Rhea's words.

"Excuse me?! He used an alpha command on me, he was being a controlling asshole and-"

"And he was trying to protect your ass." Rhea finished for her. "Yes, he went about it the wrong way. From what I can tell, you two weren't in a relationship?" Ash nodded. "And definitely not a concrete relationship for alpha commands to even be on the table between the two of you. But he knew what was best for you in that situation, probably thought that the command was the only way to make sure you were kept safe."

"But-"

"You're stubborn as fuck Ash." Rhea said. "You can't deny that." Ash pursed her lips.

"I still could have helped!"

"And done what?" Rhea asked. "Sure you can shoot guns but what would've happened if anyone working for Maxwell recognized you? You'd be right back where you were before Omega helped you."

"I can defend myself." 

Rhea sighed. "Ash, it doesn't matter if you can protect yourself or not. An alpha is always going to have the advantage against you." The blonde sighed.

"I hate it when you're right."

"And you better damn well know it." Ash snorted, uncrossing her legs for a second to reach out with her foot to gently push at Rhea's leg.

"I've missed you." Rhea reached over and ruffled Ash's still rain-soaked hair.

"I've missed you too." Ash smiled before sighing again.

"I can't go back there." She said. "Not now at least."

"Stay here for a few days." Rhea said. "Let you and Omega cool down a bit and then go back and talk to him."

Ash nodded. "Yeah."


	13. Chapter 13

It had been three days since Ash left the base and she did the smart thing and stayed in Rhea's apartment. This was the worst part of the city and Maxwell's men were most likely crawling the streets. Despite previous actions, Ash wasn't a complete moron.

She cooled down from the argument between her and Kenny and now she just felt like shit. She felt like she just broken up with someone, which, technically she kind of did? 

But not really...

It hurts her head to think about it.

The third day she's been staying at Rhea's apartment, she was alone when there was a knock on the door. She stiffened, unsure if she should go answer it or not. Rhea was at work and so was their friend Aliya and if it was someone who was there for her, there would be no one to help her. Then again, if they were here to hurt her they would have just broken the door down.

She slowly got up from the couch and locked the chain on the door before opening it a crack and peeking out around it, seeing two cops stood there. The two cops flashed their badges and even in the brief glimpse Ash got of them, she could tell that they were real.

"Hi." The one on the left said, an alpha, taller than the other. "We're looking for a Ashley?" Ash narrowed her eyes as the two of them lowered their badges.

"Why're you looking for her?"

"We received word from an anonymous tip that she had contact with Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Omega. We like to take her to the station for questioning." She pursed her lips.

"She's not in trouble, is she?" The officer to the right shook his head, another alpha. 

"She's not." He said. "As long as she cooperates." Ash nodded and closed the door, unlocking the chain and opening the door again.

"Well, I've never met Omega." She lied, still wanting to protect Kenny. "But I'll gladly talk to you about Maxwell." She stepped back and grabbed the hoodie that she arrived in, all clean and dry now, and slipped it on before stepping outside and shutting the door. She followed the cops down the stairs and out the front door and that's when she felt a shiver of uneasiness wash over her. 

Her mind was screaming at her that something wasn't right and she couldn't figure out why, everything seemed normal on the street as the cops lead her across the road towards the parked cop car. And the closer she got to the car, the more she wanted to turn and run the other way. She couldn't place what was making her feel like that.

At least, not until one of the cops opened the back door of the car and she saw Maxwell waiting for her there.

Ash stopped in her tracks and turned to run, only to be caught by the other cop. "No! Let me go!" The cop just shoved her into the backseat of the car and Ash found herself in Maxwell's lap. She quickly scrambled away from him and towards the door, only for it to be slammed in her face. She searched for the handle to open the door but there wasn't one, so she started pounding her fist on the window, hoping that someone might hear her or at the very least that the window would break.

"No no no no no..." She muttered under her breath, hitting the window hard, making her hand throb in pain. She froze however, when she felt two hands on her waist, before shifting her focus to getting as far away from Maxwell as possible.

"Calm down!" Maxwell commanded and Ash whined as her body followed the order. "Submit." She couldn't do anything as her body went limp and she was pulled closer to Maxwell. The alpha positioned her so that she was straddling his lap before he looked over Ash's shoulder. "Get us out of here." The car started and Ash watched through the back window as they drove away.

"Now." Maxwell said, turning his attention back to Ash, resting his hands on her hips, running up and down her sides. "It's good to have you back, baby."

"Fuck you!" Ash spit out and Maxwell growled.

"You're still a snarky little shit then, aren't you?" He said, leaning forward and pressing his nose to Ash's throat. She swallowed as he scented her. "I wouldn't even bother with you if you didn't smell so goddamn good."

Ash had to swallow down the bile that rose in her throat as Maxwell nipped at her throat. She was revolted by his very touch and she had to fight back tears as she was forced to sit in his lap and endure it. "I'm glad you're back though, I'm very much looking forward to your heat."

"It already happened!" Ash snapped. "You're too late." Maxwell just hummed in response.

"Well that's a shame." He said, pulling away from the skin of Ash's neck before leaning up to kiss her. Ash shut her eyes tight and did everything she could to not vomit right then and there. The kiss was demanding, too rough, all bites and tongue and Ash tried to disconnect from the situation. She was brought back though as the hands on her hips slid lower, her eyes opening wide as they squeezed. 

Maxwell finally pulled away and leaned back, smiling smugly as he groped her ass, watching the omega's distress.

"Well..." He started. "We'll just have to have some fun practicing until your next heat." Ash's eyes begin to water as she struggled against Maxwell's commands as the alpha leaned forward to press his nose against her neck again, before pushing the omega's face into the crook of his own neck. "I have a feeling you'll be a good fuck and we'll have plenty of time to test that."

"Omega won't be able to help you this time."

×××××

Kenny hadn't been able to find Ash when he went out to search for her. He didn't know if that was because she wasn't out on the streets anymore, because Maxwell had found her, or just because the omega didn't want to be found. The point was, he couldn't find her and he'd not gotten much sleep since Ash left.

He would thrown himself into planning the raid on Maxwell's base since then, not allowing himself to dwell on Ash for too long during the daylight hours. He's been working both himself and his gang hard and the hard work had paid off as they were nearly finished.

Three days after Ash had left, they were in a meeting, working out the finer details and pointing out possible weaknesses when Kenny's phone started ringing. He sighed and glanced at the screen, not recognizing the number. He let it go to voicemail and went back to planning. They been at it most of the day and it was nearing evening, if they just worked on it a little bit longer...

Not even a second after the ringing stopped, it started up again. Kenny furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the screen, seeing the same number again. He pursed his lips as he picked it up, answering the call.

"What?"

"Is this Omega?" 

Kenny narrowed his eyes.

"Why do you want to know?"

"We need your help, please."

"Listen!" He sighed. "I'm busy and I can't just-"

"It's about Ashley!" 

He froze, straightening up from where he's been leaning on the table.

"What about her?" The voice on the other end of the line took a deep breath in, as if trying to calm themselves down.

"Okay. Okay, my name's Rhea, I talked to you when you first helped her out?"

Kenny nodded.

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well, after your fight she walked to me and my friend's Aliya's apartment."

Kenny sighed in relief.

"So Ash is okay then?" The rest of the gang stopped working at the mention of her name.

"Not anymore, I just- We came back from work today and she was just gone."

"What do you mean she's gone!?"

"One of the neighbors saw her leave the building with two cops. And they saw her get shoved into the back of the cop car and pound on the window before she was pulled away from the glass." 

Kenny gritted his teeth, knowing exactly who was behind this.

"We'll get her back." He said, about to hang up the phone when...

"Wait! Me and Aliya want to help. I can fight and Aliya knows her way around a gun." 

Kenny paused, debating whether or not he should involve Rhea and her friend in this. They both was civilians after all, but he wouldn't mind the help…

"Okay." Kenny said. "Grab a pen and paper or something, I'm gonna give you the address of where to meet me." He recited the address of the base off to Rhea and the other told him they was on their way before hanging up. 

Kenny hung up from his end of the call and looked up at the gang, seeing their worried looks.

"Someone call Becky!" He said. "Plans have changed, we're attacking now."

"Are you sure we're ready for that?" Cody asked and Kenny pursed his lips.

"We're going to have to be." He said. "Maxwell has Ash."


	14. Chapter 14

Ash was exhausted.

She didn't know how long they been in the cop car, it could've been only a few minutes but to Ash it felt like hours. She's been fighting the alpha command that had been keeping her still as she mentally disconnected herself from what Maxwell was doing and saying. She was just glad her clothes were still on at this point.

But as they pulled up to a warehouse near the water, Ash felt the effects of the commands fade and she wanted to sob in relief, even as she felt something run from her nose and she tasted blood on her lips. She finally broke the commands…

And then the door opened.

"You want us to take her for you, boss?" Maxwell nodded.

"Yeah, grab her." She felt hands slip underneath her arms and lift her up and she took her chance. As soon as she's been lifted out of the car, she kicked back, hitting the alpha in the balls. He yowled, losing his grip on Ash and the omega fell to her knees, still weak from the effort of breaking the command. She quickly scrambled to her feet and managed to start running.

Only to be grabbed by the wrists and be pulled into the other cop’s chest. She screamed as she struggled, squirming to try and break the alpha's hold on her, kicking behind to try to land a blow, pushing off the ground to try and force her way out of the alpha's arms. The alpha she kicked before had recovered and was making his way over to Ash and she kicked out at him as well, nearly shoving her foot down the alpha's throat when...

_**"Stop struggling!"** _

Ash didn't even mean to whine at the command, but she couldn't stop the omega cry that slipped from her throat as her body followed Maxwell's command. She saw the alpha in front of her wince as the effects of the omega whine called for him to help the distressed omega. Maxwell stepped out of the car and calmly walked over to Ash, stopping just in front of her. He tutted and reached out to touch her, wiping away the blood still dripping from her nose with his thumb.

"You poor thing." She just glared at him as he turned around. "Take her inside." Ash couldn't do anything under the weight of the command as she was brought into the base, carried down several hallways before down to the basement, where she was brought all the way down to the last cell.

She was set down on the ground and she moved to stand up, technically not struggling, when the alpha who carried her pushed her down to her knees while the other grabbed some rope that been hanging on the doorknob of the cell. He walked over to Ash and grabbed her wrists, forcing them behind her back. 

The blonde winced at the uncomfortable angle as the alpha tied her wrists together, then her ankles, before both of the alphas stepped away from her. Behind them, she saw Maxwell leaning against the wall, smirking at her.

"You look good like that." He said, as he pushed off the wall and walked toward her, finally stopping and crouching down in front of her. "You're tied up and helpless, completely submissive and at my will. Just like the omega you're supposed to be." Ash scowled and spit in Maxwell's face.

"Fuck off." Maxwell growled as he wiped off his face and lunged at Ash, grabbing a hold of her chin and lifting her face to him, making her meet his eyes.

"I won't have my omega acting that way towards me." He growled.

"I'm not your omega!" Ash spat out. She didn't expect Maxwell to smirk at her comment.

"No, you're right." He said. "You're not my omega. You're my property." He turned his head to the alphas standing behind him and snapped his fingers. One of them walked around Ash and she could hear metal moving behind her, she wanted to turn her head to look at what was going on, but Maxwell held his grip on her chin, keeping her looking forward. She jumped when she felt cold metal against her neck and heard a click as a thick metal collar was locked around her neck. She saw the hand of the alpha enter her vision, handing a key over to Maxwell, who finally let go of her as he took the key.

Ash couldn’t help the whine she let out as the collar brought out the omega in her and she hated the effect it had on her. She was horrified as she felt herself lose her will to fight, her submissive side coming out. Maxwell chuckled, seeing the omega before him break.

"Be a good girl now. I'll be back later to talk to you about your little escape to Omega." Maxwell and the alphas left the room and Ash heard the door click shut and lock before she pulled at the ropes around her wrists, slow and sluggish as she was still under the effect of the command. It tired her out quickly though, so a minute later she stopped, sagging in her spot in the middle of the cell.

She lifted her head and looked around the room. It was dark, the only light coming from the only window, a small, barred one on the door. From what Ash could tell, the walls were made of cinder-blocks and the floor was hard concrete. She could just make out the silhouette of something on the floor which she could only assume was a mattress, the only object in the room.

Her knees were starting to ache so she shuffled backwards until her feet hit the wall behind her and she shifted into a more comfortable position, sitting and leaning against the wall, before she looked up at the ceiling. She bit her lip as she felt a tear slide down her cheek and she closed her eyes.

She should have stayed with Kenny, fuck, why did she leave him? She could have stayed there and talked it out after the fight. She's sure she would have eventually seen some sense if she just locked herself in her apartment and cooled off. She didn't have to leave the base and now look where she was.

Her chest heaved with a sob and she ached for nothing more than to be held in Kenny's arms.

××××××

Kenny tapped his foot, waiting in the lobby while the rest of his and Becky's gang got ready for the raid in the armory. They acted quickly once he received Rhea's call and fifteen minutes after he been called, Becky and her gang showed up, ready to fight.

He was just beginning to wonder how far away Rhea and her friend lived when a worn down pick up truck pulled up outside the base and came to a slow stop. Not even a minute later, the driver and passenger was cautiously walking into the building. Kenny walked over to them and held his hand out.

"I'm assuming you’re Rhea and Aliya?" The Australian nodded, both girls each taking Kenny's hand and shaking it.

"And I'm assuming you're Omega?" Aliya asked which Kenny nodded. "I appreciate you letting us help out. We rather be out there helping get Ash back then sat at home with my thumbs up my ass.” Rhea said which made Aliya laugh and making Kenny snort.

"We could use all the help we can get." He said, letting go of Rhea's hand and motioning for them to follow. "Just be careful, I want to get away with as little injury as possible."

"Will do." Rhea said. "You know, Ash was planning on coming back." Kenny glanced back at Rhea.

"What?"

"Yeah." Aliya said. "She forgave you a couple days ago, she was just working up the courage to come back." Kenny took a deep breath, continuing down the hallway towards the backyard, turning at the last door, the three of them heading down the stairs.

"I regret what I did." He said.

"Good." Rhea said a little more aggressive than she been before. "You shouldn't have tried commanding her like you did."

"I know." Kenny said. They were silent as they walk down the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, towards the armory.

"For the record?" Rhea said as they reached the armory door. "She sees your side of things now." Kenny swallowed, nodding as he pushed the door open.

The room was bustling with activity, everyone gearing up and putting on armor.

"If you're ready to go." Kenny called out to the room, heading over to the stored armor. "Head over to Orton to get a comm." He grabbed his armor as those who were ready headed over to Randy, who was set up at a table in the corner of the room with a box of comms sat in front of him, and picked up two sets of armor and tossed it over to Rhea and Aliya, who both caught it.

"You know how to put that on?" He asked the both of them but Rhea shook her head while Aliya was putting on her armor. Kenny turned around to the line by Randy. "Finn! Come over here!" Kenny started putting his on as Finn left the line and walked over to them. "Help Rhea here put on her armor." Finn nodded and instructed Rhea on how to put it on before she worked on the straps to secure it.

"The rest of the gang have their own jobs to do." Kenny said. "And I want you sticking with me. Cody and I will be searching the base for Ash and you two will be most useful with us." Both of the girls nodded as Finn finished strapping up Rhea's armor and patted her shoulder before heading back over to Randy. "What're you most comfortable shooting?"

"Anything works." Rhea replied as Kenny finished strapping himself into his own armor.

"You alright with just a handgun then?" He asked, walking across the room to their weapon wall. "No offense, but I rather not give you too big of a gun when we've only just met." Rhea nodded.

"Fair enough." Kenny grabbed a standard pistol and passed it over to Rhea, tossing her a box of ammo as well, before he grabbed his own weapons. He slipped a handgun in the holster hidden in his armor, slipped sheathed knives in pockets, and grabbed his submachine gun. As he was stocking up on ammo, he glanced around the room, only able to really notice the paired off couples. 

Cody and Darby were stood off to one side of the room, Cody checking over Darby's stashed weapons and Darby checking over Cody"s armor. On the other side of the room, Becky was helping Alexa strap on her armor, and near the line by Randy, Roman and Dean were embracing tightly. Kenny winced as he remembered that their tasks in the plan split them up.

"Omega?" He turned around at the mention at his code name seeing Aliya standing behind him. "Ash's a strong son of a bitch, we'll get her back." Kenny smiled gratefully, glad to have heard that reminder.

"I know." He said. "And my name’s Kenny, by the way.” Both of the girls looked at Kenny with wide eyes at him telling them that.

"Um..." Rhea started. "Since we know your name now… we're not getting shot in the head after this is all over are we?" Kenny let out a startled laugh, shaking his head.

"No." He laughed. "But I might just have a spot in the crew for you two if you do well." Both of the girls smiled.

"We like that." Kenny nodded at Aliya before looking at the others in the room, seeing that most of them were ready to go, just waiting for his command. He left the girls behind as he walked over to Becky, who was just pocketing a knife. She looked up as Kenny walked towards her.

"You ready?" Kenny nodded and Becky smirked. "Let's get your girl back then." Kenny felt his cheeks redden as the two of them turned towards their men (and woman, in Becky's case), and she whistled, getting everyone's attention.

"Okay!" Becky called. "Everyone know what they're doing?" Everyone shouted their affirmatives.

"Okay!" Kenny said. "If you haven't already, get a comm from Orton, everyone else, head out to the garage and split off into vans." The gangs head off, some to Randy, others through the door at the opposite side of the room. Cody and Rhea lagged behind everyone as Kenny headed over to Orton to grab his comm. Randy nodded at him.

"Good luck." Kenny smiled tightly as he reached up to put his comm on. They'll get her back.

They will.


	15. Chapter 15

Ash's eyelids felt heavy and all she wanted to do was sleep but that wasn't exactly something that she was able to do. Not when her arms were tied behind her back at an awkward angle, the floor was too hard for her to even imagine she could get comfortable, and the collar was just a cold, heavy reminder that she wasn't safe. So no, she couldn't sleep no matter how much she wanted to.

It felt like she's been in the room for days but she had no way of knowing just how much time had passed since there weren't any windows to the outside in her cell.

The blonde let out a soft whine as she shifted, her shoulders sore from keeping her arms behind her and her legs falling asleep from sitting so long. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that she was anywhere else but trapped in a cell in Maxwell's warehouse. She knew that it was far too soon, they only known each other for a month or so, but she wished she had a bond with Kenny at that moment. 

Not only would she have been able to let Kenny know she was in trouble, she'd have his comfort as well, almost as if she was there with him letting her know everything would be okay. 

At least, that's what Rhea had told her the bond was like, being able to communicate with each other when they were countries apart, being able to feel your bondmate's emotions, provide and receive comfort even when they couldn't physically be together.

She could've had all that if she hadn’t been so goddamn stupid. She knew that Kenny would come for her, but she wondered if he would get here too late. Ash didn't know how far they were in planning and there was no way Kenny could know she was there now. If planning too long enough and Ash's heat came before Kenny did, Maxwell would bond with her.

She quickly changed her train of thought, not wanting to go any further down that path. She took a deep breath in, thinking firmly that Kenny would find her in time. She would apologize to Kenny and they would go back to how they were before except Maxwell would be gone and they'd be together. They would go on dates and kiss and cuddle and do couple things together. Someday they would bond and sometime after that, they would start their own family…

The door slammed open and she jumped, her eyes flying open to see an alpha storming towards her. He crouched down in front of her and wrapped his hand around Ash’s throat, just above the collar and making her struggle for air.

"Shut the fuck up."

"I don't know what you’re talking about!" She croaked out.

"You've been fucking omega crying for the past ten minutes." He growled out. "You're driving everyone out there up the wall." The alpha squeezed harder and Ash let out a choked gasp.

"I'm sorry." She said, her voice quiet and strained. "I'll stop. I'll stop. I'm sorry." The alpha growled and pushed Ash as he let go of her throat, making her hit the back of her head on the wall behind her. She groaned out as her head throbbed.

"If you start up again I won't be so nice next time I come in here." And with that, the alpha left the room, slamming the door behind him.

××××××

Ash had no idea how long she was alone in the room before the door opened and Maxwell walked in, two alphas following him into the room before shutting the door behind them. Maxwell leaned against the wall as the two alphas walked over to her. 

She had no idea what was going on until one of the alphas crouched down next to her and pulled out a pocket knife.

"So..." Maxwell said. "You stayed with Omega after you left me." Ash quickly shook her head.

"No, I didn't-"

"Don't lie to me!" Maxwell shouted, making Ash flinch. "I would've found you if you been staying anywhere else, I know he took you in. Did you know him beforehand?" Ash shook her head.

"I don't know what you're talking about." The alpha next to her flicked the pocket knife open and Ash flinched at the movement. "I swear, I don't know-"

"I searched the whole damn city for you when you got free!" Maxwell cut her off, pushing off the wall and making his way over to her, stopping in front of her and squatting down so he was eye level with her. "Tell me where Omega's base is." Ash pursed her lips, deciding that speaking has only made her situation worse so she stayed silent. 

Maxwell's head tilted to the side as he narrowed his eyes. "What did Omega get out of giving you somewhere to stay?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I know a little slut like yourself wouldn't be opposed to offering some… Services in exchange for some shelter." Her lips pressed together in a tight line as she fought not to argue with Maxwell, knowing it only add fuel to the fire.

"Did Omega treat you right?" Maxwell continued. "Did he knot you good, treat you like the whore you are? What about when you had your heat, did he fuck you through it? Did you beg for his knot like a good little cum dump?"

Ash was fuming.

Maxwell looked her over before he stood up. "Do whatever you have to do to get her to talk, just make sure she’s still pretty after you're done with her." And with that, he turned around and left the room. Ash gulped as the alpha in front of her took Maxwell's place, standing in front of her with his arms crossed. The one next to her grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head up so that she was looking at the man in front of her. She winced as she felt the cool metal of the pocket knife caress her cheek.

"All you have to do is tell us where Omega's base is." The alpha in front of her said. "Then we'll leave you alone." Ash shook her head minutely, sure she's scared. She's absolutely terrified and dreading the pain the alphas are going to put her through for not telling them, but Kenny's safety is worth more than some cuts and bruises.

The knife pressed harder into her cheek at the next caress, leaving a shallow laceration and Ash winced again as she felt blood run from the cut.

"We can do this all day." The alpha in front of her spoke again. "Do you really think you can hold out for long?" At her continued silence, she earned another cut on the opposite cheek.

Her only response was another wince.

The alpha holding her hair growled and let her go. "Maybe a knife won't be enough persuasion for this one."

"What do you mean?" In response to the other alpha's question, the alpha beside Ash closed the pocket knife and pocketed it once more. Before Ash could even anticipate it, he threw a punch, hitting her hard in the gut.

The blonde gasped as the air was knocked out of her and she was left trying to catch her breath for a few terrifying moments.

"What's the address?" Ash just shook her head and just as she was able to breathe properly again, the alpha in front of her punched her in the face, the force of the punch enough to make Ash hit her head on the wall behind her again.

"Where's the base?" Ash's mind was swimming and her head was throbbing, staying silent. It could've only been a minute since the alpha asked the question when Ash screamed as the alpha in front of her stomped down on one of her legs, which were laid out in front of her.

The room practically echoed with how loud the snap of the bone was beneath the alpha's foot and Ash was heaving in deep breaths, her face throbbing, her gut sore, her leg burning.

"Why are you so determined to keep Omega safe?!" The alpha in front of her shouted. "Is this stupid alpha really worth all this?!" Her breathing slowed back to normal as the pain in her leg faded a bit, still throbbing but not enough to cause her too much pain. She lifted her face up to look at the alpha in front of her and spit. She missed, the glob splatting just past her own feet, but it got the point across.

That point was answered with another punch to the stomach.


	16. Chapter 16

The vans skidded to a stop outside the base and Kenny climbed out of the one he's been in, watching as his and Becky's gang split off into their groups. Royce, Becky's demolitions expert, headed off immediately with Roman, Aliya, and Seth to the farthest side of the building, first part of the plan being a distraction.

While the rest of the gang waited for the signal to move in, Kenny found Cody and Rhea, walking over to the door they parked closest to. Once they received the signal, the three of them would wait a couple minutes for that side of the building to clear before heading inside.

A few minutes later, a loud explosion shook the ground and both of the gangs headed in two teams, one heading over towards the farthest side of the building and the second heading towards the middle of the building to thin out how many people were heading for the first team.

Kenny, Cody and Rhea were left waiting by the door, and a few minutes after everyone else had headed off, their comms buzzed to life.

"Head in now! I'll keep an eye on the cameras to make sure you aren't stopped for too long." Orton said as Kenny threw the door open and aimed his gun immediately, glancing around to make sure no one was there before the three of them started forward. They walked quietly and carefully, glancing down any hallway they passed by to make sure they been cleared.

"Turn right at the very end of the hallway." Orton said "There's two guys down that hallway, just a heads up." Kenny just nodded, sure that Orton would see it since he was watching the security cameras. They paused just before the turn and Kenny peeked around the corner, seeing that the two guys were standing at two doors on opposite sides of the hallway. He silently signaled to Cody which one to shoot and when he nodded, the three of them turned the corner.

The two guys didn't even have time to react before there were bullets embedded in their brains.

Kenny followed Orton's directions as they continued towards the basement, taking down stragglers whenever they found them. In a couple minutes, they were standing in front of the basement door and Kenny pulled it open.

They were immediately met with screams, echoing off the walls and ringing in their ears. Kenny's blood ran cold, knowing who those screams were coming from. He's tempted to throw the plan out the window, just sprint down the stairs and strangle whoever's making Ash scream like that. He's stopped however, when Cody puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down Kenny." Orton spoke. "Stick to the plan." He took deep breaths before he nodded and the three of them headed down the stairs, the screams growing louder and louder, stopping when they started walking down the hallway. Kenny narrowed his eyes, not liking the way the screams had just cut off like that.

And then the screams started up again, only this time they weren't screams of pain. They were screams of terror, of panic.

"Shit!" Orton swore, and Kenny heard frantic clicking and typing over the comms. "Shit! Fuck!" He paused and reached up to press the button on his comm.

"Orton?"

"Last door to the left!" Orton said, his voice serious and so unlike the beta Kenny knew. "Get in there now!"

They started sprinting down the hallway.

××××××

Ash was breathing hard in between the screams she belted out, tears running down her cheeks and clouding her vision.

"I don't know anything!" She shouted. "I wasn't staying with Omega!

Please, just please stop!" With one final kick to the gut and one final scream ripped from her throat, the beating stopped. For one glorious second, Ash thought they were finished. She took the reprieve to catch her breath, taking deep gulps of air in as she tried to breathe through her pain. 

Her hopes were squashed when through the ringing in her ears, she heard not working and different tactic. She didn't want to know what that meant but she wasn't given a choice as one of the alphas stepped up to her, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to sit up from where she's fallen over during the beating. She was propped up on the wall and the alpha who sat her up stood over her, feet planted on either side of Ash's legs.

Ash blearily looked up at the alpha, catching him smirking down at her. The ringing in her ears had mostly faded away and she could clearly hear him talk now.

Except she wished she hadn't.

"I want you to be a good little omega for me now." The alpha reached down to unbuckle his belt and knowing exactly what the alpha was planning, started screaming again. She screamed for someone, anyone, to please help her.

The alpha had tossed his belt to the side and was just working on pulling down the zipper of his jeans when the door to the cell burst open, banging off the wall. Ash glanced over to the door and honestly could've cried when she saw Kenny.

For a moment, Kenny's eyes were their normal blue, but when he saw the alpha standing over Ash, the belt tossed on the ground, and where her hands currently were, his eyes screamed for bloodshed, going a brilliant blood red. He growled, practically roaring in rage, lifting his gun and shooting.

The alphas were dead on the ground in seconds.

Rhea stepped past Kenny, who was breathing heavily and his eyes were still a bright red, and ran over to Ash, who actually did sob in relief. The Australian crouched down in front of her, placing her hands on the omega's shoulders.

"You need to calm down, Ash." She said, her voice calm and even. "Just breathe, that's it Ash, just take deep breaths, you're safe now." Ash used Rhea's breathing to slow her own down, so focused on calming down that she didn't even notice Cody until he was already next to her and cutting the rope around her wrists and ankles. She jumped briefly, startled by Cody's sudden appearance and Rhea snapped her fingers and caught her attention again. "Hey, hey look at me, come on Ash, keep going, you're doing so well."

When Ash could finally move her wrists again, she surges forward, kneeling with her weight on her good leg, and wrapped her arms around Rhea's neck, taking comfort in her best friend's scent. Her breathing was still erratic and fast, her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest and she just wished she could check out for a while, just go unconscious so she didn't have to feel like she was about to have a heart attack. Rhea just rubbed her back as she continued to talk calmly.

"You're safe now, come on Ash, just breathe." The blonde closed her eyes tight and imagined that they were both back at Rhea's apartment, not in a dark cell where she nearly been forced to…

She took deep breaths until she was breathing somewhat normally, enough to pull away from Rhea. She glanced over Rhea's shoulder and saw Kenny still standing at the door, his eyes were mostly back to their normal color again, and he met her eyes.

"Kenny..." The way she said Kenny's name nearly broke all three of alphas' hearts and Kenny immediately stepped into the room, heading towards her. In an attempt to meet him halfway, Ash stood up, only to cry out as her leg gave out from underneath her. Rhea was able to catch her before she fell far and Kenny reached her, his hands hovering as if he wanted to help.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "What hurts?" She gritted her teeth.

"Leg." Cody, still crouched down, reached over and gingerly rolled up the fabric covering the leg Ash was avoiding stepping on. If the bruising wasn't enough to make it clear that the leg was broken, the way the leg was bent made it crystal clear. 

He rolled the fabric back down and reached up to press the button on his earpiece. His voice echoed to Kenny as he listened to him talk through his own comm.

"Darby? We need you to meet us outside, Ash needs medical attention." Darby's answer was almost covered by the sound of gunshots and shouting happening around him.

"On my way!"

Kenny gingerly picked Ash up, still jostling her in the process and causing her to cry out in pain.

"Sorry Ash." Her eyes were shut tight and she was taking deep breaths in.

"It's okay." She said quietly. "Couldn't help it." She held on tight to Kenny and tucked her face into the crook of Kenny's neck as they left the room. Rhea lead the way and Cody took up the rear, keeping guard as they left the basement.

"I'm sorry for commanding you." Kenny said quietly as they started making their way out of the building. "I was out of line and I should never have even considered doing it."

"I get why you did." Ash murmured. "I can be a bit stubborn at times."

"A bit?!" Ash furrowed her eyebrows and turned her head away from Kenny to glare at Rhea.

"Shut up." Kenny chuckled at their exchange as Ash turned back and cuddled in close to him again. "Besides, it was dumb of me to leave the base."

Kenny was just about to open his mouth when he heard Orton talk in his comm. "Watch out Omega, you've got company headed your way." There was a gunshot and the bullet embedded itself in the wall where Kenny's head had been just a few seconds ago.

"Omega!" Kenny turned to see Maxwell storming towards them, four guards following close behind.


	17. Chapter 17

"OMEGA!"

Kenny quickly passed Ash off to Rhea, doing his best to ignore the omega's cries of pain as she was jostled.

"Get her out of here!" He said frantically. "Run!"

"Brace yourself!" That was the only warning Ash got before Rhea took off running, doing as she was told and running out of the building. Kenny grabbed his pistol and he and Cody provided cover fire, shooting at Maxwell and his guards as they backed away from them. 

Kenny glanced around, looking for cover, seeing one of the guards next to Maxwell go down out of the corner of his eye. The guards Maxwell had with them were bad shots, but they eventually land a hit and there wasn't any cover for Kenny or Cody in the hallway. Luckily, there were two rooms nearby, one on each side of the hallway. Kenny kept shooting with one hand, managing to take down another one of the guards, as he reached over to the doorknob on his side of the hallway and opening the door.

"Take cover in that room." He shouted over the gunfire to Cody, motioning over to the door on the opposite side of the hallway. The alpha nodded and shouldered the door open, stepping inside as Kenny took cover in the room he opened.

A quiet overtook the hallway as Kenny reloaded his pistol. He glanced over at Cody, seeing him doing the same.

"There were only four guards, right?" He asked quietly, only loud enough for Cody to hear.

"Yeah." He sighed, glancing around the door before quickly ducking back as a gun fired and a bullet flew by. "We both took one down so we've just got Dickhead and two guards left." Kenny nodded, leaning against the doorframe, out of view of Maxwell and the guards.

"There aren't any others coming." Orton said over the comm. "The rest of Maxwell's men are preoccupied with the others."

Kenny nodded. "Let's take them down quick." He said. "I don't know about you, but I wanna get out of here."

"Agreed." He said. Kenny adjusted his grip on the pistol. "On three." He said quietly. "One... 

Two... 

Three!" He and Cody both stepped out of cover, making quick work of shooting the last two guards in the head. Maxwell must not have been expecting that, because he jumped as Kenny and Cody aimed their pistols at him.

"Hands up!" Kenny ordered, leading the way slowly over to Maxwell. He watched as the gang leader in front of him did as he was told, slowly raising his hands and putting them behind his head. "On your knees." Maxwell let out a low growl before following orders, dropping to the ground.

"It's been a while, Omega." He said casually, as if they were old friends and Kenny didn't have a gun aimed at him.

"Shut up!" He said and Maxwell raised an eyebrow.

"I don't remember you being so snarky." He said, a smirk growing on his face. "Does this have something to do with that omega?" Kenny shoots his gun, aiming for Maxwell's knee. He doesn't want to kill him just yet, he wanted to draw this out as long as possible.

"Shut up!" Maxwell winced briefly before chuckling, knowing he hit a nerve.

"What?" He said, a teasing tone slipping into his voice. "You found the poor little omega and got attached?" He chuckled. "Did you have a go with her yet? I'm sure she felt so good around a knot." Kenny gritted his teeth, trying to keep his cool. "I bet the whore bent over easily for you."

"Shut the fuck up!"

"If I knew you and the cum dump were so close I would've just killed her the second I grabbed her!"

There was a gunshot and Kenny jumped, watching Maxwell's body slump to the ground, a bullet in his brain. Kenny lowered the pistol he held and looked at Cody, seeing him still aiming his gun.

"Did you...?"

"I wasn't about to let him keep talking shit." Cody said, lowering his own gun now. Kenny sighed.

"I wanted to make him suffer a bit before doing that." He said. "But thanks." Cody nodded. "He deserved a hell of a lot worse than what I gave him." He nodded, still stewing in the aftermath of Maxwell's words. He should've just shot him in the head the second he got him on his knees. He made a mistake in giving him the time to get into his head.

"Let's get going." Cody said, touching his shoulder. "She needs to get medical help as soon as possible." Kenny snapped himself out of his anger and he nodded, the two of them breaking into a sprint towards the exit.

The van closest to the door had it's doors wide open, Darby standing between them and the vehicle. He turned around at the sound of Kenny and Cody's footsteps coming closer and he breathed out a sigh.

"She's panicking." He said as they walked up to him. "If she doesn't calm down soon, she's going to hurt herself more." Kenny stepped past him and climbed into the van.

Ash was laid out on the floor of the van, eyes red and tear tracks running down her cheeks, breathing rapid. Ailya was knelt next to her, doing her best to calm her down but not having much of an effect.

"Let me help." Kenny said and Ailya nodded, moving from her spot next to Ash to let Kenny take her place. Kenny gently moved Ash so that the omega's head was laid in his lap and he started stroking her hair. "Ash baby."

She flinched at the word and Kenny quickly realized that he probably shouldn't call her that. "Tenshi" He said gently. "You're safe now, okay? But you need to calm down." Her dark blue eyes rested on him and she let out a ragged breath.

"Can't." 

Kenny was about to ask what he could do when she continued, answering his unspoken question. Omega... Space..." The alpha hesitated.

The only people omegas ever allowed to put them under into omega space were the ones they were close to, people they trusted with everything they had. Best friends, brothers, sisters, mates... The fact that Ash was asking him to do this was huge.

"Are you sure you want me to do this, Ash?" Ash quickly reached out to take the hand that wasn't stroking her hair, nodding. "Please." Kenny swallowed and nodded, taking the hand that had been stroking the omega's hair and reaching around to the back of her neck, squeezing gently.

He didn't know the exact science of it, just that the omega went unresponsive for a while, not asleep but not exactly unconscious either, more of a deep meditation that took the omega away from their surroundings. 

It was used to stop panic and anxiety attacks, to calm them down. It made them extremely vulnerable so most omegas only let alphas put them under since they were most able to protect them while they couldn't themselves.

Her eyes closed, body relaxed, breathing returning to normal. She looked peaceful, as if she's only gone to sleep. Kenny's protective alpha instincts flared up.

The others moved around him, Cody going over to the driver's seat, Darby climbing in the back with Kenny Ailya and Ash, Rhea climbing in shotgun. Cody started the car and they sped away.

"We're leaving now." Rhea said, her voice echoing in Kenny's comm.

"We're almost done clearing out the warehouse." Britt said, and Kenny reached up and pulled the comm out, wanting to keep his full focus on Ash. 

"You guys might as well raid the warehouse while you're there." Cody said from the front seat. "Get whatever you can find there that might be of any use to us." Kenny pulled his hand away from behind Ash's neck, knowing she wouldn't come back up if she did, and continued stroking her hair. He knew that if Ash ended up panicking while in omega space, then they would have a whole other issue.

Darby worked with what they had, lifting her shirt to reveal bruising, he pursed his lips.

"Cody, head over to the hospital." Darby said. "We'll have to have Dracula sneak us in so I can make sure this isn't internal bleeding." Kenny swallowed, trying to keep himself calm at hearing that, but he couldn't help the ball of anxiety growing in the pit of his stomach. He just got Ash back, he couldn't lose her permanently, not after this.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Darby poked the side of his arm.

"Calm down Kenny." He said. "While she's in omega space, she's hyper aware of the emotions around her, especially yours." Kenny nodded and took a deep breath. "Besides, it's just a precaution. This is most likely just some bruising but I want to be sure." Kenny nodded again as Darby turned his attention to Ash's leg. He reached into his armor and pulled out a knife, cutting the fabric of Ash's jeans and tearing it open the rest of the way. The bruising somehow looked worse than it had when they seen it before.

He reached down and pressed two fingers to her ankle for a second before he took a hold of her leg.

And then the omega was whining in pain and Kenny was growling. The beta just glanced up at him.

"I just set her leg." He said, glancing around for a second before reaching behind himself, pulling out a bat that had been left in the van, most likely from a previous raid. He worked on splinting Ash's leg while Kenny calmed her back down.

The faint sound of ambulance sirens let them know that they were almost there.

××××××

"Ash, come up for me Tenshi."

She could just faintly hear Kenny's voice, but she did as she was told, following her normal routine for coming up from omega space.

She listened to the sounds of the room, the steady beeping of a heart rate monitor, the drip drip drip of water, the faint sound of each breath she took.

Next, she focused on touch, the soft fabric surrounding her, making her feel like she was floating on a cloud, a hand in hers, fingers intertwined.

Then the smells... 

She recognized the scents of several people, Rhea, Ailya, Darby, Cody, Dean, and a couple others she couldn't place. The strongest was Kenny's, which covered her in a blanket of comfort, a safe haven.

She opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was in a room she didn't recognize but it didn't look like she was in a hospital like the IV attached to her and the heart monitor suggested. She was practically cocooned in blankets on the bed, and then there was Kenny, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand in his. She met the alpha's eyes and Kenny smiled.

"You fully back?" Ash nodded, swallowing when she noticed how dry her throat felt. 

How long was she under...?

"Yeah..." She said, voice scratchy. Kenny sighed and reached out with his free hand, toying with her hair. She closed her eyes and sighed, leaning into his touch. When she opened her eyes, Kenny had an intense look in his eyes. "Ken-"

"Maxwell's dead." He interrupted her. "He won't bother you anymore." Ash took a deep breath in, remembering where she'd been.

"Where are we now?"

"My apartment." Kenny answered. "I figured you'd want to be comfortable while you recovered." Ash furrowed her eyebrows and Kenny stopped toying with her hair to pull the blanket covering Ash back, revealing bruises painted across her skin and a bright blue cast on her leg. Ash looked from her injuries to Kenny. 

"So what's the diagnosis?" Kenny chuckled, bringing the blanket back up to cover her again.

"Well..." He started. "The broken leg is the worst of it. You've got a couple bruised ribs too but other than that, just bruises and cuts that'll heal on their own."

"Good." She said. "Is everyone else okay?"

"Apart from a couple black eyes and some grazes from bullets, everyone's fine." Ash sighed, relieved to hear that.

"So..." She sighed. "Maxwell's gone." Kenny nodded. "He is." He said "And he's not coming back." She smiled.

"Good." She said. "That means I can do this."

Despite the protesting of her body, Ash sat up and reached towards Kenny, pulling him in by the scruff of his shirt, and kissed him. Kenny chuckled, shifting so that they be in a more comfortable position for Ash, and kissing her back.

Ash let out a dry laugh into the kiss after a bit and Kenny broke it briefly, looking at the omega with a raised eyebrow.

"Something funny?" She shook her head.

"No, it's just..." She sighed, pressing their foreheads together. "While I was in that cell, I was afraid you wouldn't get to me in time." Kenny frowned, holding her just a bit tighter than she had been before.

"I knew just hours after it happened." He said. "Rhea got a hold of me and told me what happened." He pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead. "I wasn't gonna let you stay there for more than a day."

"Thank you."

"No need to thank me." He said "Believe me, it was purely selfish." There was a gleam in his eyes that told Ash that he was teasing. "After all, where else would I find an omega like you if I lost you." Ash puckered her lips, silently asking for another kiss and Kenny laughed, leaning forward and kissing her again.

Yeah, she could get used to this.


	18. Chapter 18

It's been three months since Maxwell was killed and Ash was still dealing with the effects of her time at the warehouse. Her physical injuries were all healed, the cuts and bruises had faded weeks ago and her ribs had healed as well. The only part she was still dealing with was strengthening up her leg after not using it for six weeks.

Mentally on the other hand, was a completely different story. She came out of the cell jumpier, a bit more paranoid. She had nightmares for a week straight after she gotten out of there but they gotten a lot less frequent, maybe once a week instead of several keeping her up at night.

The support she gotten from the gang was incredible, helping her when she was injured and couldn't get around as easily, being patient with her when she had one of her worse days. She would have days where she felt less than comfortable around alphas and Darby and Dean were always there to distract her, Alexa coming over whenever she could.

Rhea and Aliya had become a constant as well, having been made an official member of the gang, they being there just made the base feel even more like her. Cody had helped her a lot in the more recent weeks. 

Apparently before he joined a gang he wanted to be a physical therapist so Ash was working with him to grow stronger after her injuries healed. It brought the two of them closer, she considered Cody almost as close a friend as Rhea and Aliya was.

And then there was Kenny, who she was sure would give the world to her if he could. He let her stay in his apartment while her leg was healing, held her in the middle of the night when she woke up from a nightmare, comforted her when she woke up convinced that Maxwell was still alive. And there was no more waiting, they were together now and Ash couldn't have been happier. Kenny loved her, there was nothing else the feelings she felt for Kenny could be.

××××××

Three months to the day Maxwell was killed, Ash woke up in the best way possible.

Her mind slowly became aware of her surroundings, the warm body beneath her, an arm wrapped around her providing safety and security, the soft touch of fingertips brushing at her hair, lips pressing kisses to her forehead. She blinked her eyes open, looking up at Kenny, who was smiling softly down at her. She smiled back up at him before setting her head on Kenny's chest, cuddling into him more. He laughed softly. "We should probably get up."

"I don't wanna." She whined. "Wanna keep cuddling."

"We can cuddle later." Kenny said and Ash just shook her head. She closed her eyes, smiling.

"You know?" She said quietly. "You've definitely improved in the cuddling department since that first time."

"Oh yeah?" Ash nodded.

"Mhmm." She hummed. "You've turned into a teddy bear." Kenny laughed again. "A teddy bear?"

"Yep."

"I don't think I qualify as a teddy bear considering what I do for a living." Kenny said. "If anyone's a teddy bear between the two of us, it's you." Ash just hummed as Kenny continued running his fingers through her hair. "We really do need to get up."

"Nooooo."

"Come on." He said. "I've got a surprise for you tonight, but we need to get out of bed so I can take care of business." She opened her eyes and lifted herself up, meeting Kenny's eyes. "Surprise?" He nodded.

"Mhmm." He hummed. "A surprise. But we need to get up."

"Fine." Ash sighed dramatically. "I suppose we could." Kenny smiled and leaned forward to press a kiss to her lips briefly. She smiled into the kiss before pulling away and flopping down on her back next to Kenny. 

Kenny moved right away once she had moved from above him, getting out of bed. She turned over onto her side then, watching Kenny move around the room with a smile on her face.

He dug around in his dresser for a bit, pulling a set of clean clothes out and placing it atop the dresser, before turning around to face Ash. He sighed affectionately, walking over to her side of the bed. He reached under the covers and tickled her foot, earning a squeal from the omega.

"Come on sweetheart." He said. "Get up."

"I don't have to though." She said. "Not yet anyways." Kenny just smiled mischievously in response before pulling back the covers and picking Ash up, the omega releasing a squealing laugh as she wrapped her arms around the back of Kenny's neck.

"Noooo!" Kenny just chuckled, carrying her into the bathroom. He set her down on her feet and turned around, switching the water on in the shower. He turned back towards her. 

"We're taking a shower together to save time." She just rolled her eyes, reaching to get undressed. 

"Suureee." She said. "You just want to see me naked." Kenny shrugged, watching as she pulled her pants and underwear down at once.

"I can't deny that." He said. "You've got a great body." The blonde just rolled her eyes again and moved past him, reaching out to test to water, finding it to be the perfect temperature. She stepped into the shower, closing her eyes as she let the water slide over her skin.

After a minute of silence, she opened her eyes and looked at Kenny, who still hadn't joined her. Her boyfriend was gawking at her and she let out a small laugh.

"Stop perving and just get in already."

Kenny didn't hesitate to do as he was told.

××××××

She spent the day in the computer room in her own apartment. She and Kenny hadn't discussed what they were doing apartment wise yet as they only been together for three months, but Ash was pretty much living in Kenny's apartment already. She slept in Kenny's bed with him, she had her own drawers filled with clothes in Kenny's bedroom, and she barely spent any time in her own apartment. The only thing that could make it more official would be emptying out her apartment and moving her things into Kenny's. 

After the raid on Maxwell's warehouse, she asked Darby and Dean to break into her parents' house again, this time to grab the game consoles, games, and TV from her bedroom. She set it all up in a room in her apartment, making herself a pretty impressive gaming setup. 

So while Kenny was working on gang business, Ash spent time in her gaming room. It wasn't out of boredom, not entirely, most of the time it was to keep out of everyone's way so they could actually get stuff done. Ash made a habit of staying out of gang business anyway, she wasn't interested in getting involved with that anytime soon.

She just beat a stage in Hitman and was about to start another when there was a knock on her door.

"One second!" She called, reaching out to shut down her TV and console. She pushed away from her set up and stood up, leaving the room and making her way to the door, finding Cody on the other side.

"You ready for your workout?" He asked. Ash nodded, stepping outside of her apartment and shutting the door behind her. She followed Cody down the stairs and to the lobby, starting down the hallway and turning into the first room on the right.

The gym they had at the base was impressively equipped, exercise equipment and machines lining each wall, the middle of the floor taken up by a padded mat. In the far left corner of the room was a punching bag, which they headed towards first. Cody grabbed the roll of wrapping on top of the bag itself and tossed it to Ash, who caught it and started wrapping her hands. Once she finished, Cody held the bag for her as she started punching.

Cody had her doing hers as a warm up for the work out, but it was mostly to teach her how to throw punches without hurting her hands. She and Kenny had agreed that she needed to learn how to defend herself, so Aliya and Cody had started teaching her self defense. She wasn't quite good enough to beat anyone in the gang yet, but she at least stood a chance against the run of the mill muggers prowling the streets of Los Angeles.

After about fifteen minutes, Cody had her do stretches with her leg, building up the mobility she had before it had been broken. After the stretches, she walked on the treadmill, slowly building up speed until she was lightly jogging. That's been a more recent addition to the work out since she couldn't exactly jog until about a week ago. Before that, she been lifting weights to build up her strength since she didn't exactly have alpha strength on her side. Now they alternated between the treadmill and weights.

After half an hour, Cody slowed the treadmill back down to a slow walk before stopping it completely. "That's it for today." He said, tossing a towel at Ash. She missed it and it ended up falling over her face. She glared playfully at Cody when she pulled the towel off her head, then wiped her face with it. "Rhea and I will work with you in a couple days on more self defense." She furrowed her eyebrows.

"In a couple days?" She questioned. "Why not tomorrow?" Cody started walking out of the room and Ash rushed to catch up with him with a bit of a limp.

"You deserve a couple days to relax." He said as they walked up the stairs to the lounge, finding the rest of the gang eating lunch. Ash spotted Kenny almost immediately and headed towards him, kissing him on the cheek as she walked past. Kenny grabbed her wrist before she could get far and spun her back around to press a kiss to her mouth. They ignored the wolf whistles from the gang around them as they parted, Ash smiling brightly. "Okay Ken." She giggled. "Let me go now, I'm hungry." Kenny just kissed her briefly again before allowing her to leave his hold.

Darby and Dean were standing at the kitchen island and Ash walked over to them, bumping fists with Dean and bumping hips with Darby as she walked past. She opened the pantry and dug around a bit, grabbing a couple of granola bars.

"Hey pass me one!" Darby exclaimed.

Ash threw one over to the beta and he immediately tore one open, practically devouring it as Ash turned around to join him and Dean.

"Damn Darby! You're acting like an animal!" Seth commented, having seen his friend eat. Darby just shrugged, devouring the second granola bar just as quickly. He flashed Seth a smile full of granola chunks, causing Seth to screech.

"That's fucking gross!" Darby swallowed before joining Dean in laughter with Ash rolling her eyes. They conversed quietly for a few minutes, until Ash felt someone step up behind her and she scented Kenny before leaning back against him. Kenny wrapped his arms around Ash's waist and Ash smiled, leaning her head against his shoulder and looking up at him.

"What are you doing?"

"We'll be leaving the base at sunset." He said. "We'll be staying somewhere for the night." Ash quirked an eyebrow.

"Where we staying?" The only answer she got was a smile from Kenny.

"Grab a change of clothes and meet me in the apartment before we go." He said. He kissed the top of her head and backed away, walking off. 

She could only wonder what he was planning.


	19. Chapter 19

Ash spent the rest of the day in her apartment playing video games. When she looked out the window and saw the sky beginning to change from a murky blue to a soft orange, she shut down her set up. She headed to her room and walked straight for her en suite, taking another shower since she hadn't after her workout. Once she was finished, she changed and grabbed another set of clothes before she left her apartment and walked up the stairs to Kenny's apartment.

She opened the door, finding him bustling about in his kitchen.

"Kenny?" The alpha looked up at hearing his name and he smiled.

"Hey Ash." He said. "You remember to bring a change of clothes?" The blonde nodded, holding up the clothes she grabbed. "Good, just pack them in the backpack on the couch." Ash walked over to the sofa, opening the backpack up and putting her clothes inside, catching a glimpse of Kenny's clothes before her own cover them.

"Where we going?" She asked, turning around and heading over to the counter where Kenny was standing, packing another backpack.

"You remember this morning I told you that I had a surprise for you?" She nodded, leaning forward on the counter. Kenny looked up at her and smiled.

"It's still a surprise." Ash groaned, leaning forward and putting her head on the counter as Kenny laughed at her reaction. "You'll find out soon enough." He zipped up the backpack he's been packing and slung it onto his shoulder. "Go grab the backpack on the couch and we'll get going." Ash headed back over to the couch and zipped up the backpack again before grabbing it, following Kenny out of the apartment.

They stopped on their way down to the garage to talk to some of the others in the lounge. While Ash was talking to Darby and Dean, she saw Cody out of the corner of her eye, humping at the air. She heard Kenny snort behind him, putting a hand on her hip and leading her down to the lobby and down the hallway to the garage.

They walked past the heist cars and vans, past the gang's cars, and stopped at a car that most people wouldn't give a second glance to, which in Los Angeles was exactly what you wanted in a car. 

Kenny popped the trunk and put the backpack he was carrying in it, taking the other backpack from Ash and setting it beside the first. They climbed into the car and he started the ignition, backing out of the parking spot and driving out of the garage. They sat in comfortable silence, Ash watching the city pass by through the window.

They didn't go far, Kenny pulling into the parking lot of a K-Mart that had gone out of business years ago and parking the car. Ash was a bit confused as Kenny shut off the ignition and got out of the car but she followed suit, walking around to the trunk and grabbing one of the backpacks before the two of them headed towards the empty building.

"What are we doing here?" She whispered, as if someone was going to hear them and they get caught. Kenny chuckled, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door to the store. He opened the door and did a mock grand gesture for Ash to walk in ahead of him. She slowly walked in and looked around as Kenny stepped inside and began to unlock the second set of doors. There didn't seem to be anything there, it was just an empty store.

He opened the door and they both walked in, the store was still empty apart from a few empty shelves and a few stray cardboard boxes, except on the back wall, Ash could just barely see the soft glow of lights. When she glanced behind her at the doors, she saw that the windows were covered by paper, probably a print of the store when it was empty based on what she saw on the other side.

Kenny took her hand, intertwining their fingers, before leading her further into the store. They were headed right for the lights in the back of the store and as they walked around some of the empty shelves, Ash could finally see what was giving off the light.

Against the back wall, an air mattress was set up on the floor, covered in several blankets and pillows. A canopy of blankets hung over it, creating an impressive blanket fort, and strung up around the set up were fairy lights, giving off a soft homey glow.

She was left in awe at the sight.

"Kenny..." She spoke quietly, turning her head to look at him. The alpha stopped just before the set up and turned to face her, smiling.

"I have a buddy who's the real estate agent in charge of selling this place." He explained. "I called in a favor." They set down the backpacks and Kenny let go of her hand, lying back on the mattress and sighing. He lifted his hand and curled his finger in a motion for her to join him and Ash didn't hesitate in crawling up next to him, settling in at his side.

"We haven't had a first date yet." He said quietly. ,"And I wanted to wait until your leg was healed enough before we did." She didn't say anything, just hugged Kenny, who smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

After a couple minutes, they sat up and Kenny reached for the backpack that he brought in, pulling out a plastic grocery bag, his laptop and charger, and some DVDs.

"Go ahead and open the bag." He said, moving to stand up. "I'm gonna get the laptop set up." He opened up the computer and turned it on, taking the charger and walking around to the side of the blanket fort. Ash watched him fondly for a second until she couldn't see Kenny, then grabbed the bag and ripped it open, finding their dinner inside. 

It was simple, a couple ham sandwiches and a full size bag of potato chips, but it was one of her favorite meals, something Kenny had caught onto pretty quickly when she's been recovering. She took the sandwiches and bag of chips out of the bag and set them on the mattress, finding a couple packets of cosmic brownies at the bottom of the bag as well.

Kenny walked back around the blanket fort and plugged the charger into the laptop, bending over to press some keys. A couple seconds later, a soft melody was flowing from the speakers and Kenny held a hand out to Ash, who took it, and pulled her up to her feet. They took a couple steps away from the fort before Kenny turned to face her, placing his hands on her hips. She chuckled softly as she realized what they were going to do and she went along with it, wrapping her arms around the back of Kenny's neck, practically hanging off the alpha as they started softly swaying to the song.

"This is the sweetest thing that anyone has ever done for me." She said, looking up at the alpha. Kenny pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You deserve to be treated like royalty." He said. "And I fully intend to do just that." Ash smiled, resting her head against Kenny's chest as they swayed. She closed her eyes and let Kenny's scent envelope her in a blanket of comfort and warmth. They kept going until the song ended, even in the lull between songs.

And then a saxophone opened the next song and the two of them jumped in surprise. He groaned, stepping away from Ash to head over to the laptop.

"Give it to me I'm worth it. Baby I'm worth it. Uh huh I'm…" He paused the song as Ash started laughing, bent over with her hands on her knees.

"This is what I get for letting Cody use my laptop." He muttered under his breath and that sent Ash into a full blown laugh, the omega actually falling to the ground she was laughing so hard. Kenny watched her fondly, moving to sit on the mattress and waiting until she had calmed down and turned over onto her side, facing him.

"You finished yet?" He asked teasingly. She just nodded, standing up from the floor and moving over to the mattress, sitting down in Kenny's lap, wrapping her arms around the back of her neck again, leaning forward to capture his lips in a kiss as the alpha wrapped one arm around her middle and rested his other hand on her thigh.

"I love you." Ash murmured into the kiss and Kenny smiled.

"I love you too." He responded, breaking the kiss and pulling Ash closer to him.

The rest of the night was spent watching movies on Kenny's laptop, the two of them lying down in the fort after they finished eating. They gotten through a couple movies before Ash yawned and Kenny looked over at her, finding her fighting to keep her eyes open.

"We should get some sleep." He said softly. "It's gotta be late." Ash just nodded and Kenny shut down the laptop, setting it to the side on the floor. He reached back through the blankets where he knew the fairy lights were plugged in, and unplugged them, plunging them into darkness.

The two of them shifted to get more comfortable pulling one of the blankets out from under them and wrapping themselves up in it. Ash settled once Kenny had an arm around her shoulder and she was cuddled up into her side. Her eyes were already closed and Kenny smiled down at her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Goodnight Ash." He whispered. "I love you."

"Night Kenny." She replied quietly. "Love you too." Kenny closed his eyes, knowing they had a full day tomorrow to spend in the empty store.

He didn't care what they ended up doing, whether it was watching the rest of the movies, or running around goofing off, or more… Fun activities. He didn't care as long as they spent the day together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the end of the book, I would like to thank you all for the kudos and comments you made on this wild adventure XD -MOXerillaStixx <3


End file.
